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Iraq Invasion: British MP Asks "Why Now"?:

Forwarded:

-----Original Message-----

From: SAVIDGE, Malcolm
Sent: 25 February 2003 14:39
Subject: Why Now?

Dear Colleagues,

As a contribution to the current debate, please find an article [both below and attached].

It seeks to investigate the origins within the United States of the demand for war with Iraq . Where possible, the websites of the organizations which originally published the documents are given, so that readers may check them themselves.

Best Regards,

Malcolm

<<Why now - Iraq article.doc>>

Why now?

Malcolm K Savidge

MP for Aberdeen North

Convener, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security & Non-Proliferation

"Why now?" Tony Blair has asked repeatedly. The Prime Minister and others have sought to answer the question of the reasons for contemplating full-scale war against Iraq at this time.

Saddam's previous aggression against Iran and Kuwait is sometimes cited. However, he seems to have been successfully contained and deterred from further attacks on his neighbours for over a decade.

Hussein's horrific human rights record has also been referred to. But, since he has been committing these atrocities for decades, this does not seem likely to be the main reason that military action is being considered at present.

The British government has placed heavy emphasis on his breaches of UN resolutions. However, since many of the most vociferous advocates of war in the United States are fierce critics of the United Nations and were notoriously reluctant to use the UN route, this seems unlikely to have been their original reason for demanding an attack on Iraq.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that Iraq has fairly low stocks of missiles, many of them limited in range and accuracy. Even on the higher assessments in the UK government dossier and the report by the US Director of Central Intelligence, Iraq's missile capability is much lower than it would have been in the past.

Weapons of mass destruction have been cited as a main cause for war. As the US National Academy of Sciences has pointed out, though "weapons of mass destruction" can be a useful phrase, it dangerously blurs the massive difference between nuclear weapons and most forms of biological or chemical weaponry.

There is common agreement that Iraq has not yet achieved a nuclear weapons capability.
In the 1980's, Iraq built up considerable stocks of biological and chemical weapons with the assistance of a number of countries including all five of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. As a result mainly of the earlier inspection programs together with previous military action, it is most unlikely that its present stocks of these weapons are as large as they were in the past.

In the 1980's, Saddam used these weapons against both Iran and internal enemies, and it is therefore suggested that he would not respond to the threat of a deterrent response. However, during the Gulf War, he was deterred from using these weapons by a warning of overwhelming retaliation. He is a homicidal rather than a suicidal maniac with a murderous obsession with his own self-preservation.

It has been suggested that Iraq might pass on weapons of mass destruction to unconditional terrorist organizations, like al Qaeda. However, intelligence services are sceptical of claims by politicians of current links between Saddam and al Qaeda. While the CIA report, which the Senate forced George Tenet to make public, stated that though they did not believe that Saddam was either likely to use these weapons or supply them to unconditional terrorists, they did think that these possibilities could be increased by launching war against him. There are a number of other far more likely sources from which unconditional terrorists could obtain such materials.

Even cumulatively none of these reasons seem to adequately answer the question: Why now? Perhaps we should ask other questions.

Would we be considering imminent war with Iraq if Al Gore had been recognized as the winner of the US Presidential election? Would we be considering war if George Bush had not appointed to key positions leading right wing hawks who had been urging war with Iraq for years?

Perhaps we should seek the answer to "Why now?" in the writings of those hawks. Where possible I shall give the web sites on which the original documents were published, so readers can make their own judgement.

In 1996, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a joint US/Israel right wing think-tank, published "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." [Published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies at www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm <http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm>]. It was produced by a working group chaired by former US Assistant Defense Secretary, Richard Perle and included his former Special Counsel Douglas Feith, now US Under Secretary of Defense. It was prepared for Israel's new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advise him how to change from a policy of "land for peace" to a policy of "peace through strength." Its objective was to retain within Israel all the occupied territories, including the Golan Heights. It advocated "effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," both as "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right," and as a means of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." It suggested, "restoring a Hashemite kingdom in Iraq," and among other things promoted two of Perle's favourite concepts "the principle of pre-emption rather than retaliation alone" and missile defence - "it would broaden Israel's base of support among many in the United States Congress who may know little about Israel but care very much about missile defense". [Their italics]

On 26 January 1998, Richard Perle was one of the signatories of an open letter to President Clinton from "The Project for the New American Century". [www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm <http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm>]. Some of the other signatories are now prominent in the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton. The letter demanded the "removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power." Among the reasons given are his chemical and biological weapons, the "safety of US troops in the region...allies like Israel...and the hazard to a significant portion of the world's supply of oil."

On 19 February 1998, another open letter was sent to the President from the "Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf." Richard Perle was one of two main signatories. Supporting signatories included Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Armitage, Bolton, and Feith. It demanded "a comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime" concentrating on Iraq's biological and chemical munitions as a reason, "it is the only country which has used them - not just against its enemies, but its own people as well." [http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_33at]

The letter also refers obliquely to the ongoing impeachment of Clinton, and accusations that he was soft on Iraq rapidly became an additional line of attack on the President. Accordingly, regime change in Iraq started to become an article of faith among some right-wing Republicans.

By early 2000, Condoleeza Rice gives removal of Saddam as a basic feature of the Bush foreign policy Presidential platform (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000. P.62).

In September 2000, "The Project for the New American Century" published "Rebuilding America's Defenses" [<http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf>] which includes in its key objectives that US military forces should "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars"; and "develop and deploy global missile defenses ... to provide a secure basis for US power projection around the world." It includes the following passage, which seems to imply that conquest of Iraq should be a strategic objective for the US, irrespective of either WMD or Saddam Hussein:

"Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

On 11 September, within hours of the atrocity, Richard Perle was on British television demanding two responses: the development of missile defence and war on America's known enemies whether or not they had any connection with the terrorist attacks.

According to Bob Woodward, on the 12th of September Rumsfeld suggested attacking Iraq - as well as al Qaeda - at the National Security Council, a policy to which he and his deputy Wolfowitz had long been committed. "Before the attacks, the Pentagon had been working for months on developing a military option for Iraq." [Bob Woodward, "Bush at War", pp. 48f]

On 15 September, Rice, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld are alleged to have urged war against Iraq on the grounds that it was an easier target than Afghanistan. [Woodward, pp. 74-85]

Condoleeza Rice told the "New Yorker" 'that she had called together senior staff people of the National Security Council and asked them to think seriously about "how do you capitalize on these opportunities" to fundamentally change American doctrine, and the shape of the world, in the wake of September 11th.' [Lemann, N., "The Next World Order", New Yorker, April 1, 2002. P. 44]

Tony Blair has expressed a commonly stated view: "11 September made a difference to the way America views such things". [Hansard, 24/11/2002,c22]. It might be more accurate to say the hawks have shamelessly exploited 11 September to promote a predetermined agenda

War on Iraq ties in with two other dominant themes in neo-conservatism. The advocates of National Missile Defence had designated certain unpleasant dictatorships as "rogue states". Extreme advocates tend to define "rogue states" in simplistic terms as having an insane tyrant, driven by hatred of the USA, seeking weapons of mass destruction and missiles solely in order to attack the US and so insane as not to respond to the threat of nuclear deterrence. Such advocates suggested that these diverse "rogue states" all cooperated together and nicknamed this "Club Mad". President Bush speaks of the "Axis of Evil".

In 1990, two rival working-groups, chaired by Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz respectively, reported to Dick Cheney, then US Defense Secretary, on future policy options. The latter group produced a very hawkish agenda on which they kept working. Their theories were developed by neo-conservatives during the Clinton era, becoming the declared basis of "Rebuilding America's Defenses" [p ii] and are reflected in such Bush administration documents as "The National Security Strategy", "The Nuclear Posture Review" and "The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction". They reveal a sharp change in emphasis from arms control and diplomacy to military aggression including pre-emptive war. [Lemann, pp. 42-48, provides a useful summary of some of this.] Iraq is seen as the first rogue state on which to apply this doctrine.

An extraordinary story in the highly reputed Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, alleges that Richard Perle, now a senior advisor to the Defense Department as Chair of the Defense Policy Board, which reports to Douglas Feith, is still pursuing his original 1996 objectives. In 2002 Perle invited Pentagon chiefs to a meeting, where Ha'aretz reports:

"According to information that reached a top official in the Israeli security services, the researchers showed two slides to the Pentagon officials. The first was a depiction of the three goals in the war on terror and the democratisation of the Middle East: Iraq - a tactical goal, Saudi Arabia - a strategic goal, and Egypt - the great prize.

"The triangle in the next slide was no less interesting: Palestine is Israel, Jordan is Palestine, and Iraq is the Hashemite Kingdom." [Ha'aretz, Perles of wisdom for the Feithful, 1 October 2002]

In the same article, Ha'aretz noted that a prominent member of the Hashemite royal family, Prince Hassan, the uncle of King Abdullah of Jordan, played a prominent role in the meeting arranged in London last year for the Iraqi opposition in exile.

Doubtless, many other hawks do not share Perle's dream. Indeed, so many diverse reasons are given for war with Iraq, that the impression is created that this is being driven more by an ideological obsession than any particular objective.

From his talks with administration officials, last April Nicholas Lemann forecast how this desired conflict would be achieved: "A drama involving weapons inspections in Iraq will play itself out over the spring and summer, and will end with the United States declaring that the terms that Saddam offers for the inspection, involving delays and restrictions, are unacceptable. Then, probably in the late summer or early fall, the enormous troop positioning, which will take months, will begin." [Lemann, p48]

UN Security Council Resolution 1441 was reasonable, if reasonably interpreted. Intrusive inspections under threat of military action and using technology, which has considerably improved in the last decade, in conjunction with modern surveillance, could achieve disarmament much more effectively than was possible in the early '90s.

However, the Bush administration demanded positive cooperation by Saddam Hussein in voluntarily handing over his arsenal in a short period, while at no time giving a united and unequivocal guarantee that the US would not subsequently invade anyway. This does not seem like an ultimatum intended to achieve a peaceful resolution.

"Why now?" can also be applied to the rush to war. Is the timetable dictated less by any immediate threat than by US domestic politics and military and climatic considerations?

In conclusion, perhaps we should ask another question: "Why not?" Possible dangers of launching war include, as the CIA suggested, that it could provoke Saddam, when facing impending destruction, to attempt to use his biological or chemical weapons. If he attacked Israel then that could evoke a nuclear response. Another risk is that it could lead to the dispersal of some of the materials or personnel from his WMD programme. King Abdullah of Jordan warned that destabilizing such a volatile area could open a Pandora's box. Since conspiracy theorists could genuinely trace the war's roots to a right-wing 'Zionist plot', there is a particular danger of provoking Arabic - and indeed Islamic - feeling around the world, and thus inflaming terrorism and inadvertently achieving Osama bin Laden's ambitions. For Britain, there is a particular threat. While here in the UK, Tony Blair may generally have been seen as a moderating influence for peace on the Bush administration; elsewhere, he maybe viewed as an essential co-conspirator in war mongering - making us a future target. Pre-emptive war sets a dangerous precedent. Who does the West attack next? Who follows that example? Is the concept not dangerously close to what were condemned as international crimes in Counts 1 and 2 of the Nuremberg Tribunal? Finally if, as Nelson Mandela has suggested, this is a recipe for "international anarchy"; then, in a world in which weapons of mass destruction cannot be disinvented, humanity will face a bleak future.

Based on the above which was recently circulated by MP Malcolm Savidge to his fellow Members of the British Parliament (MP's), the British government is waking up to the nefarious JINSA Zionist extremist agenda which is pushing US to war...

The US government (with its oil company connections) also wants to keep the US dollar (vs. the EURO) as the standard currency for international oil dealings according to the academic essay by William Clark which can be found via the following URL:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/22/the-real-reasons-for-the-upcoming-war-with-iraq.php

The JINSA Zionist extremist cabal (of Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Elliott Abrams, and John Bolton) has basically hijacked the Bush regime and is pushing US to its long desired war on Islam (to begin with the invasion of Iraq) for greater Israel and oil (Robert Fisk of the London Independent mentions in the following article that Dick Cheney was on the board of advisors for JINSA before becoming Vice President and helped put the other JINSA Zionist extremists into power in the current Bush regime):

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=332011

Included below is that "Men from JINSA and CSP" article from "The Nation" magazine which Mr. Fisk mentions in his article referenced above:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest&c=1

JINSA Zionist Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' before Bush Presidency:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php

Conflict of Interest for JINSA Zionist Extremists (in Bush Regime) who are Pushing US to war for Greater Israel and Oil:

http://www.mediamonitors.net/williamhughes30.htm

Iraq and Control of Middle East well Underway:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/23/war-for-iraq-and-control-of-middle-east-well-underway.php

JINSA Zionist Extremists Also Contributed to Current N. Korea Crisis

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/23/jinsa-zionists-contributed-to-n-korea-crisis-also.php

This Zionist extremist agenda of JINSA (which is pushing for the US to attack Iraq and then Iran and Syria) is confirmed by what JINSAN John Bolton mentioned in Israel recently (according to what is mentioned in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper article which can be accessed via the following URL):

We'll deal with Syria, Iran after Iraq War - says JINSA Zionist John Bolton who is at the US Department of State:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/17/we-ll-deal-with-syria-iran-after-iraq-war-john-bolton.php

JINSA Zionist Extremists at Pentagon to Control Iraq:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/04/radical-jinsa-zionists-at-pentagon-to-control-iraq.php

War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/10/the-war-on-iraq-conceived-in-israel.php

Israeli sources say war imminent; Iran and Syria next:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/15/israeli-sources-say-war-imminent-iran-and-syria-next.php

Kurdish Leaders Enraged by 'Undemocratic' American Plan to Occupy Iraq:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=379060

Would be a Lot Cheaper for US to Just Cut Aid to Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/23/would-be-a-lot-cheaper-to-just-cut-aid-to-israel.php

I think that France will more than likely courageously veto (unless it thinks of its oil interests at the last minute), but the JINSA Zionist extremists will push forward anyway... What really irks me more than anything is how that JINSA Zionist extremist Paul Wolfowitz mentions that he would like to "liberate" the Arabs of Iraq and that such is one of the main reasons for putting into play his long desired invasion of Iraq and beyond.. Completely insincere... If he was so concerned about "liberating" Arabs, why don't we send our troops into Gaza and the West Bank to "liberate" the Arabs of occupied PALESTINE?!

Forwarded:

JINSA Zionist Extremists to have US Military Occupy Iraq for Years...

I just read in the article (included below) that the JINSA Zionist extremist ("Israel Firster") cabal (of Doug Feith and company in the Bush regime) has not even given much thought to the occupation of Iraq as they are planning to have US forces remain in Iraq for years (how is the US government going to afford that?!).

The Pentagon has already sent 100,000 body bags and 6,000 coffins for expected US casualities as a result of the coming invasion of Iraq, so the Bush regime is obviously expecting mass US casualities ( the latest New York Times poll conveys that only 45 percent of the US public supports an invasion of Iraq if mass US casualities result, and we all saw the "Blackhawk Down" film about US troops in Somalia).

http://www.maxlogan.com/the_nation.htm#The%20Whole%20World%20is%20Against%20This%20War.

Bush's Presidential Malpractice

by David Corn

If a doctor handed you a strong medication--saying you had no choice but to swallow it--but didn't talk to you about the host of new ailments and problems that might be caused by the medication, that would be damn irresponsible. Well, meet George W. Bush, M.D. He has been claiming the United States must take the most extreme measure--war--to keep itself safe and healthy. Yet he has refused to address the knotty matters (post-op complications?) that will follow in the wake of war.

This dereliction of duty--or presidential malpractice--was readily evident on Tuesday when top administration officials appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the future of Iraq. (Looks like its present has been settled: invasion and occupation, unless Saddam Hussein scoots.) At this session, under-Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith noted that while the Pentagon has spent months positioning troops and readying to de-Saddamize Iraq, it only opened an office for postwar planning three weeks ago. At the same hearing, Feith and under-Secretary of State Marc Grossman said there would be at least a two-year US military occupation of Iraq following an invasion. So with the game plan war and occupation--and the Bush administration has been considering taking over Iraq since September 12, 2001--the Pentagon managed to get serious about planning for the post-invasion period merely a month or so before, it seems, the invasion is to come. (The duo did claim that the Pentagon had been thinking about postwar matters for ten months.)

With Feith's and Grossman's testimony, the administration has acknowledged it intends to rule Iraq for quite a while after the war. (Their two-year estimate may be quite optimistic. One former US ambassador quips there are two possible occupation scenarios. Plane One is an occupation that lasts for ten years. Plan Two is an occupation that is supposed to last for five years, but goes on for ten.) So then, how does the Bush White House intend to install (eventually) a democratic government? (Remember this war is also for the liberation of the Iraqi people, as soon as the United States decides it's time for its occupation to end.) How will the US manage the oil industry of Iraq? Who will pay for the construction costs? Who will feed the Iraqi people, most of whom now rely on the Iraqi government for their food supply? "There are enormous uncertainties," Feith said. "The most you can do in planning is develop concepts." Actually, in planning, you can develop plans--hire staff, call in experts, consult with multilateral outfits and aid organizations, and begin drafting proposals. These plans may end up not working. They may have to change. But you can give it a go and, at least, establish a baseline. For his part Grossman observed, "How this transition will take place is perhaps opaque at the moment." From the fog of war to the fog of postwar.

The senators were perturbed. Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, pushed the pair for information on how a transitional government would be kick-started following an invasion. After receiving an insufficient response, he exclaimed (Biden is quite good at exclaiming), "When we're three weeks away from war or five weeks away from war, possibly, you don't know the answer to that? You haven't made a decision yet?" Note to Biden: don't forget you voted to give Bush the right to invade Iraq whenever he deems appropriate, without having to obtain a declaration of war from Congress (or present a workable, confidence-building plan to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee). Grossman, though, did concede that the financial costs of whatever comes in Iraq will be high: "There are things in our own country we're not going to be able to do because of our commitment in Iraq." Somehow that point was not covered in the budget Bush recently submitted to Congress. A printing error? The President is already squeezing domestic spending on such things as heating assistance for low-income Americans while pushing for a variety-pack of tax changes benefiting the well-heeled. And he refused to leave any space in his budget for a war, let alone the potentially more costly occupation.

By the end of the hearing, perturbance had transitioned into dismay. Richard Lugar, the mild-mannered Republican chairman, woefully commented, "What we have heard is not good enough; we are way behind. Who will rule Iraq and how? Who will provide security? How long might US troops conceivably remain? Will the United Nations have a role? Who will manage Iraq's oil resource? Unless the administration can answer these questions in detail, the anxiety of Arab and European governments, as well as that of the American public...will only grow."

It wasn't just the specifics-free presentations of Feith and Grossman that was worrisome. Retired General Anthony Zinni, former head of US Central Command, raised questions that ought to provoke pause. Zinni has been a war-skeptic, one of the leading ex-military voices against striking Iraq, maintaining that Saddam is not an imminent threat, that he is "very well checked," and that now is "the worst time to take this on." (The ranks of this platoon thinned last weekend when former General Norman Schwarzkopf of Gulf War I--who had not, long before, shared his heartfelt opposition to US military action in Iraq with The Washington Post--pulled a quick retreat on Meet The Press perhaps after having heard from the Bush clan.) Zinni, once in charge of humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in northern Iraq, Somalia, and Bosnia, knows his postwar stuff. And in his testimony to the committee, he made a few eloquent and troubling points.

"In addressing the issues that might be faced in a post-conflict Iraq, the first question that has to be answered deals with the end state envisioned or desired," Zinni said. "Do we want to transform Iraq or just transition it out from under the unacceptable regime of Saddam Hussein into a reasonably stable nation? Transformation implies significant changes in forms of governance, in economic policies, in regional status, in security structure, and in other areas. Without a determination of the scale and scope of change desired, it is not possible to judge the cost and level of effort required. Certainly, there will not be a spontaneous democracy so the reconstruction of the country will be a long, hard course regardless of whether a modest vision of the end state is sought or a more ambitious one is chosen."

So is it transition or transformation? The President hasn't said which. Nor has the Secretary of State Colin Powell. Nor has Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (the often acting-Secretary of State). Feith and Grossman didn't supply any illumination. But doesn't the public--which will pay for the war and occupation in all ways--deserve to know which vision Bush embraces? Or if he even has one?

Zinni, in a polite but unflinching fashion, noted that he, too, considers the Bush administration unprepared for the post-battle battle. "A lot of thought has been given to the kinds of problems and tasks that we will face in the aftermath," he testified. "I have read several recent studies and pieces produced by groups of knowledgeable people. Generally, these works have, in my opinion, captured the broad requirements and the issues very well. Defining the problem, however, is only half the task. The other half deals with how you solve the problem. I have not seen a lot of specifics in this area." And it's his job, as an armchair-thinker at the Center for Strategic and international Studies, to locate and evaluate such specifics. Yet they're not out there. One example: Zinni said that six out of ten Iraqis depend on the "oil for food" program managed by 40,000 feeding stations run by Saddam's government. No one in the Bush administration, he added, knows if this program can continue to function after an invasion. If not, there will be millions of Iraqis without food. Will the US proconsul in Iraq be ready to feed 12 million or so people? "Who's going to do it?" Zinni asked. "Where are they? You know, if you have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground formed up into divisions and wings and ask forces at sea, where is the counterpart to these on the other [humanitarian, political, and economic] sides? It isn't going to be a handful of people that drive out of the Pentagon, catch a plane and fly in after the military peace to try to pull this together."

Maybe it will be. This war is not about what comes next. And Bush is not keen to tell the American people what might happen after he "disarms" Saddam. In some instances, a threat may be so pressing that a nation does not have time to consider what is likely to occur after it acts to neutralize that danger. (War boosters like to pooh-pooh war critics who fret over postwar consequences by noting that when the United States entered World War II there were no plans other than those for victory.) But the Bush administration has had many months to consider--and openly discuss--a postwar Iraq, as well as the financial and security costs of maintaining a US military occupation for years. And it has not leveled with the public. In his bellicose speeches, does Bush ever say, "You know, the American people should realize that we may have to stay involved and run Iraq for a number of years and that we will pay for this noble endeavor with higher taxes, diminished services, and/or larger budget deficits. But to protect us and our children and our grandchildren, that's what we need to do"? Such words would give Karl Rove a stroke.

If Iraq is not poised to strike--or to enable another party to strike--the United States, the decision to go to war can be weighed judiciously. Such a deliberation ought to take into account possible consequences and costs. They may not determine the ultimate judgment, but they should to be in plain view. Yet Bush has not been candid. Informed consent is not part of his prewar plan.

And what is the Arab/Muslim world going to think when it confirms that these nefarious (scheming) JINSA Zionist extremists (like Doug Feith and company in the Bush regime) have designs on occupying Iraq for years (for Israel's benefit) as mentioned above:

What Does the Bush Imperial Maffia Really Want?

by William Blum

Which is the more remarkable -- that the United States can openly
announce to the world its determination to invade a sovereign nation and
overthrow its government in the absence of any attack or threat of attack
from the intended target? Or that for an entire year the world has been
striving to figure out what the superpower's real intentions are?
There are of course those who accept at face value Washington's stated
motivations of "liberating" the people of Iraq from a dictatorship and
bestowing upon them a full measure of democracy, freedom and other eternal
joys fit for American schoolbooks. In light of a century of
well-documented US foreign policy which reveals a virtually complete absence
of such motivations, along with repeated opposite consequences, we can
dispense with this attempt by Washington to win hearts and mindless.
Presented here are some reflections about several of the causes that make
the hearts of the imperial mafia beat faster in regard to Iraq, which may be
helpful in arguing the anti-war point of view:
Expansion of the American Empire: adding more military bases and
communications listening stations to the Pentagon's portfolio, setting up a
command post from which to better monitor, control and intimidate the rest of
the Middle East.
Idealism: remaking the world in what the true believers see as America's
image, with free enterprise and Judeo-Christianity as core elements; here is
Michael Ledeen, former Reagan official, now at the American Enterprise
Institute (one of the leading drum-beaters for attacking Iraq): "If we just
let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we
don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this
thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do
very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
Oil: the sine qua non of Middle East policy, yesterday, today and
tomorrow; to be in full control of Iraq's vast reserves, with Saudi oil and
Iranian oil waiting defenselessly next door; OPEC will be stripped of its
independence from Washington and will no longer think about replacing the
dollar with the Euro as its official currency; oil-dependent Europe may think
twice next time about being so uppity.
Globalization: Once relative security over the land, people and
institutions has been established, the transnational corporations will march
into Iraq ready to privatize everything at fire-sale prices, followed closely
by the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and the rest of the
international financial extortionists.
Arms industry: As with each of America's endless wars, military
manufacturers will rake in their exorbitant profits, then deliver their
generous political contributions, inspiring Washington leaders to yet further
warfare, each war also being the opportunity to test new weapons.
Israel: The men driving Bush to war include long-time militant supporters
of Israel, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, who,
along with the rest of the powerful Israeli lobby, have advocated smashing
Iraq for years. Israel has been playing a key role in the American military
buildup to the war. Besides getting rid of its arch enemy, Israel could use
the opportunity to carry out its final solution to the Palestinian question
-- transferring them to Jordan, (liberated) Iraq, and anywhere else that
expanded US hegemony in the Middle East will allow. Iraq's abundant water
could be diverted to relieve a parched Israel.

Written by William Blum, author of "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's
Only Superpower" -- www.killinghope.org

Israel's Proxy War?:

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mshahidalam1.html

Kurdish Leaders Enraged by 'Undemocratic' American Plan to Occupy Iraq:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=379060

JINSA Zionist Extremists at Pentagon to Control Iraq:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/04/radical-jinsa-zionists-at-pentagon-to-control-iraq.php

JINSA Zionist Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' before Bush Presidency:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php

Israeli sources say war imminent; Iran and Syria next:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/15/israeli-sources-say-war-imminent-iran-and-syria-next.php

Washington's Zionist Chicken Hawks to Reshape Mid East for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/10/25/washington-s-zionist-hawks-to-reshape-mid-east-for-israel.php

JINSA Zionist Extremist Richard Perle Does Not Speak for the Majority of Americans:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/05/every-patriotic-american-needs-to-access-this.php

John Pilger: Urgency of Saving Lives:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/16/john-pilger-urgency-of-saving-lives.php

The Threat of "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing) in Israel and Palestine:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/15/the-threat-of-transfer-in-israel-and-palestine.php

TOO MANY SMOKING GUNS TO IGNORE: ISRAEL, US JEWS, IRAQ:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/28/too-many-smoking-guns-to-ignore-israel-us-jews-iraq.php

UN REMARKS by Foreign Affairs Ministers of Syria and France (especially comments by Syria about US/UN double standard in not enforcing paragraph 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687 against Israeli weapons of mass destruction as well):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/14/un-remarks-by-foreign-affairs-ministers-of-syria-and-france.php

Iraqi Ambassador: UN/US Double Standard with Israeli Nuclear Weapons:

The UN (US) double standard for Israel with paragraph 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687 against Iraq (which calls for the Middle East to be a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as mentioned below by the Iraqi UN Ambassador) is completely unjust (especially when it comes to Israeli weapons of mass destruction):

Iraq Turns Spotlight on Israel at U.N. Arms Body:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/31/iraq-turns-spotlight-on-israel-at-u-n-arms-body.php

The Return of Zionist Extremist Elliott Abrams:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/04/return-of-zionist-extremist-elliott-abrams.php

Israeli Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth with 9/11:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/16/israeli-spy-rumors-fly-on-gusts-of-truth-with-9-11.php

HISTORY MADE AS MORE THAN A MILLION MARCH FOR PEACE:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12646938&method=full&siteid=50143

http://www.maxlogan.com/the_nation.htm#The%20Whole%20World%20is%20Against%20This%20War.

"The Whole World is Against This War."

by John Nichols

"The whole world is against this war. Only one person wants it," declared South African teenager Bilqees Gamieldien as she joined a Cape Town antiwar demonstration on a weekend when it did indeed seem that the whole world was dissenting from George W. Bush's push for war with Iraq.

Millions of protesters marched into the streets of cities from Tokyo to Tel Aviv to Toronto and Bush's home state of Texas to deliver a message expressed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to a crowd of more than one million in London: "It's not too late to stop this war."

Crowd estimates for demonstrations of the kind being seen this weekend are always a source of controversy, especially when nervous politicians -- like British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- try to convince journalists and the public to dismiss the significance of the protests even before they begin. But, faced with a historic show of dissent, even the constantly spinning Blair had to acknowledge that the cost for his unwavering support of the Bush administration on Iraq is turning out to be "unpopular" in his own land.

Britain's Guardian newspaper described the London march as the largest peace demonstration in the country's history. The headline on Sunday morning's Observer newspaper read, "One million. And still they came," and announced that the "massive turnout surpassed the organizers' wildest expectations and Tony Blair's worst fears." Organizers of the British march estimated that as many as 1.5 million were cheering as London Mayor Ken Livingstone told the crowd, "So let everyone recognize what has happened here today: that Britain does not support this war for oil. The British people will not tolerate being used to prop up the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years."

German police said 500,000 marched in Berlin, while organizers put the number considerably higher. In Rome, an estimated one million marched on a day when newspapers reported that polls show 85 percent of Italians do not support a war to disarm Iraq. Organizers put the size of the Madrid crowd at 600,000, while city officials said as many as 1.3 million took to the streets in Barcelona. At least 300,000 people gathered in cities across France.

The protests spread around the globe, to Canada and Mexico, to Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands and Russia, and to Bahrain, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Iraq, South Korea Thailand.

New York's streets were jammed by a crowd that stretched 20 blocks down the city's First Avenue and overflowing onto Second and Third avenues. Estimates of the actual turnout varied wildly, but it seemed reasonable to suggest that at least 300,000 protesters converged for the midtown rally site where Archbishop Desmond Tutu, actors Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, singers Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte and US Rep. Dennis Kucinich appeared. "Peace! Peace!" shouted Tutu. "Let America listen to the rest of the world -- and the rest of the world is saying: 'Give the inspectors time.'"

Among those expressing opposition to plans for war was Adele Welty, whose son, Timothy, was a firefighter killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "Timothy was at the World Trade Center on September 11 to save lives," said Welty. "I don't feel that he would sanction innocent lives either in this country or in Iraq being shed in his name."

The larger-than-expected crowds that rallied around the world fed a renewed confidence among peace activists that the message of signs carried at one of the weekend's first rallies -- in Auckland, New Zealand -- might yet turn out to be right: "We can stop this war."

As yachting's America's Cup opened Saturday in that New Zealand city, a plane chartered by Greenpeace circled over the harbor pulling a huge banner with the words: "No War, Peace Now."

"Bugga off bully boy Bush" was the chant on the streets of Auckland as thousands of anti-war demonstrators proudly launched a weekend of protests. "Millions of people around the world are rallying today to say no to war and New Zealand is the first country to send this message," said Greenpeace's Robbie Kelman. "Countries like New Zealand must add their weight to efforts for a peaceful solution to this crisis."

The point of the global protests, according to Kucinich, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who will travel to Iowa this week to launch a bid for the Democratic presidential race as an explicitly anti-war candidate, was to add grassroots pressure to the diplomatic push to avoid war.

Echoing the view of French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who successfully thwarted a Bush administration to ramp up support for war at Friday's United Nations Security Council meeting, the protests around the world argued that war is not justified at a point when evidence indicates that U.N. inspectors are making progress toward disarming Iraq.

Dramatic early evidence of global antiwar sentiment came from Australia, where an estimated 200,000 people filled the streets of Melbourne Friday to protest their government's support of US plans to attack Iraq.

"This is a huge statement by the people of Melbourne, and the people of Australia to John Howard: that he's gone the wrong way and should turn around," said Australian Senator Bob Brown, a Green, who last week led a successful effort by senators to censure Australian Prime Minister John Howard for dispatching troops to the Persian Gulf region. "The people of Australia don't see this as our war."

Organized by labor, religious and student groups, the Melbourne protest was so large that commentators were speculating on the prospect that Howard could face serious political turmoil over his decision to back US President George W. Bush's push for war with Iraq. Signs at the demonstration Friday announced that this would be "Howard's End." And Australian Senator Natasha Stott Despoja told the crowd, "It is an amazing scene here with you today in a show of solidarity to send a strong message to Prime Minister Howard and the Australian government that Australians don't want war."

The Australian demonstration was described by reporters on the scene as the largest the country has seen in more than 30 years. And it was just the beginning of an around-the-world show of opposition to moves by the US, Britain and a handful of allies to force the United Nations to effectively endorse an preemptive attack on Iraq.

More than 600 demonstrations are expected to take place in communities around the world on -- from San Francisco to New York to London to Seoul, and from Antarctica to Iceland -- by the end of the weekend mobilization. Demonstrations are expected to take place in at least 60 countries. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, although there were skirmishes in Athens; in New York, where police attempted to prevent marchers from getting near the United Nations; and in Colorado Springs, where arrests were made after demonstrators blocked a road near an Air Force base.

The New York demonstration was one of more than 200 planned for this weekend in US cities from Augusta, Maine, to Yakima, Washington, and Wausau, Wisconsin. What was supposed to be a relatively modest Los Angeles demonstration grew so large that television reporters there were reporting breathlessly on the "massive" show of opposition to war. Actors Martin Sheen and Mike Farrell and director Rob Reiner joined a march that filled Hollywood Boulevard from curb to curb for four blocks. Police claimed 30,000 turned out, while organizers said the crowd ultimately swelled to almost 100,000.

The swelling crowd sizes at Saturday's rallies in the US led organizers of a Sunday march in San Francisco to predict that it could turn into one of the largest demonstrations that west coast city has ever seen.

While weekend demonstrators in the US and Britain were seeking to change the minds of their leaders, crowds in Germany and France were expressing support for moves by the French and German governments to block Bush administration initiatives at the UN. "Help to prevent new suffering, new destruction and new death," read a sign carried by survivors of the Allied bombing of Dresden at the close of World War II. Saturday's huge protests in Berlin mocked U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's criticisms of European war foes, with signs reading, "Old Europe is Against the War."

No leader could have felt more pressure Saturday than Britain's Blair, whose personal approval ratings have dipped dramatically as he has continued to side with Bush's position on war.

Understanding that a switch by Blair could force Bush to rethink his position, Jesse Jackson flew to London to join rock stars, actors, playwrights, former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella and former British parliamentarian Tony Benn, who recently traveled to Iraq to interview Saddam Hussein, for the Hyde Park rally. "Iraq is a challenge that must be put in perspective. It is not the priority that Bush and Blair have made it to be," Jackson said after arriving in London.

Among those marching with Jackson and the others was British author John Mortimer, long one of the most prominent members of Blair's Labour Party. Noting revelations that Blair's government doctored intelligence reports to create a false impression that they revealed clear and present dangers from Iraq, Mortimer said in announcing his decision to join the London demonstration: "We are being persuaded into war by lies and half truths. A secret service document, making it clear there is no evidence of a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, is disregarded. A 10-year-old article by an undergraduate is presented, and solemnly referred to by Colin Powell as if it were the latest government report, and no effort has been made for our Government to tell the truth about it."

KUCINICH BID: US Representative Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, confirmed Sunday that he will launch an exploratory committee in preparation for a presidential bid. One of the most outspoken foes of war with Iraq in Congress, Kucinich appeared at Saturday's anti-war rally in New York....

Guest-c651

Guest-c651

Guest-c651 · Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 3:10 am Post subject: Two Men Driving Bush into War

Two men driving Bush into war

Ed Vulliamy in New York profiles the religious figures behind a 'Texanised
presidency' who believe war will mean America is respected in the Islamic
world

Sunday February 23, 2003
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901066,00.html

Behind President George W. Bush's charge to war against Iraq, there is a
carefully devised mission, drawn up by people who work over the shoulders of
those whom America calls 'The Principals'.

Lurking in the background behind Bush, his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are the people propelling US policy. And
behind them, the masterminds of the Bush presidency as it arrived at the
White House from Texas, are Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz.

It is too simple to explain the upcoming war as 'blood for oil', as did
millions of placards last weekend, for Rove and Wolfowitz are ideologists
beyond the imperatives of profit. They represent an unlikely and formidable
alliance forged between the gritty Texan Republicans who took over America,
fuelled by fierce conservative Christianity, and a faction of the East Coast
intelligentsia with roots in Ronald Reagan's time, devoted to achieving raw,
unilateral power.

Rove and Wolfowitz have worked for decades to reach their moment, and that
moment has come as war draws near. Bush calls Rove, depending on his mood,
'Boy Genius' or 'Turd Blossom'. Rove is one of a new political breed - the
master craftsmen - nurturing a 24-year political campaign of his own design,
but careful not to expose who he really is.

His Christian faith is a weapon of devastating cogency, but he never
discusses it; no one knows if his politics are religious or politics are his
religion. A Christmas Day child born in Denver, as a boy he had a poster
above his bed reading 'Wake Up, America!' As a student, he was a fervent
young Republican who pitched himself against the peace movement.

His first bonding with Bush was not over politics, but the two men's
ideological and moral distaste for the Sixties - after Bush's born-again
conversion from alcoholism to Christianity. Rove was courted by George Bush
Snr during his unsuccessful bid to be the Republican presidential candidate
for 1980.

But Rove's genius would show later, on Bush senior's election to the White
House in 1988, when he co-opted the right-wing Christian Coalition - wary of
Bush's lack of theocratic stridency - into the family camp.

Conservative Southern Protestantism was a constituency Bush Jr befriended
and kept all the way to Washington, defining both his own political
personality and the new-look Republican Party.

When Rove answered the call to come to Texas in 1978, every state office was
held by a Democrat. Now, almost all of them are Republican. Every Republican
campaign was run by Rove and in 1994 his client - challenging for the state
governorship - was a man he knew well: George W. Bush.

'Rove and Bush came to an important strategic conclusion,' writes Lou
Dubose, Rove's biographer. 'To govern on behalf of the corporate Right, they
would have to appease the Christian Right.'

Bush's six years as Texas governor were a dry run for national domestic
policy - steered by Rove - as President: lavish favours to the energy
industry, tax breaks for the upper income brackets and social policy driven
by evangelical zeal.

Bush had been governor for only a year when, as Rove says, it 'dawned on me'
he should run for President; two years later, in 1997, he began secretly
planning the campaign. In March 1999, Bush ordered Rove to sell his
consulting firm - 'he wanted 120 per cent of his attention,' says a former
employee, 'full-time, day and night'.

Rove hatched and ran the presidential campaign, deploying the Bush family
Rolodex and the might of the oil industry and unleashing the most vigorous
direct-mailing blizzard of all time. 'If the devil is in the details,'
writes Dubose, 'he had found Rove waiting to greet him when he got there.'

By the time George W. became President, Rove was the hub of a Texan wheel
connecting the family, the party, the Christian Right and the energy
industry. A single episode serves as metaphor: during the Enron scandal last
year, a shadow was cast over Rove when it was revealed that he had sold
$100,000 of Enron stock just before the firm went bankrupt.

More intriguing, however, was the fact that Rove had personally arranged for
the former leader of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, to take up a
consultancy at Enron - Bush's biggest single financial backer - worth
between $10,000 and $20,000 a month.

This was the machine of perpetual motion that Rove built. His accomplishment
was the 'Texanisation' of the national Republican Party under the leadership
of the Bush family and to take that party back to presidential office after
eight years. Rove is unquestionably the most powerful policy adviser in the
White House.

Militant Islam was another world from Rove's. However, on 11 September,
2001, it became a new piece of political raw material needing urgent
attention. Rove and Bush had been isolationists, wanting as little to do
with the Middle East - or any other corner of the planet - as possible. But
suddenly there was a new arena in which to work for political results: and,
as Rove entered it, he met and was greeted by a group of people who had for
years been as busy as he in crafting their political model; this time, the
export of unchallenged American power across the world.

Rove in theory has no role in foreign policy, but Washington insiders agree
he is now as preoccupied with global affairs as he is with those at home. In
a recent book, conservative staff speech writer David Frum recalls the
approach of the presidency towards Islam after the attacks and criticises
Bush as being 'soft on Islam' for his emphasis on a 'religion of peace'.

Rove, writes Frum, was 'drawn to a very different answer'. Islam, Rove
argued, 'was one of the world's great empires' which had 'never
reconciled... to the loss of power and dominion'. In response, he said, 'the
United States should recognise that, although it cannot expect to be loved,
it can enforce respect'.

Rove's position dovetailed with the beliefs of Paul Wolfowitz, and the axis
between conservative Southern Protestantism and fervent, highly
intellectual, East Coast Zionism was forged - each as zealous about their
religion as the other.

There is a shorthand view of Wolfowitz as a firebrand hawk, but he is more
like Rove than that - patient, calculating, logical, soft-spoken and
deliberate. Wolfowitz was a Jewish son of academe, a brilliant scholar of
mathematics and a diplomat. When he joined the Pentagon after the Yom Kippur
war, he set about laying out what is now US policy in the Middle East.

In 1992, just before Bush's father was defeated by Bill Clinton, Wolfowitz
wrote a blueprint to 'set the nation's direction for the next century',
which is now the foreign policy of George W. Bush. Entitled 'Defence
Planning Guidance', it put an onus on the Pentagon to 'establish and protect
a new order' under unchallenged American authority.

The US, it said, must be sure of 'deterring potential competitors from even
aspiring to a larger regional or global role' - including Germany and Japan.
It contemplated the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry
pre-emptively, 'even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests'.

Wolfowitz's group formalised itself into a group called Project for the New
American Century, which included Cheney and another old friend, former
Pentagon Under-Secretary for Policy under Reagan, Richard Perle.

In a document two years ago, the Project pondered that what was needed to
assure US global power was 'some catastrophic and catalysing event, like a
new Pearl Harbor'. The document had noted that 'while the unresolved
conflict with Iraq provides immediate justification' for intervention, 'the
need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the
issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein'.

At a graduation speech to the Military Academy at West Point, Bush last June
affirmed the Wolfowitz doctrine as official policy. 'America has, and
intends to keep,' he said, 'military strengths beyond challenge.'

At the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and his boss Rumsfeld set up an intelligence
group under Abram Schulsky and the Under-Secretary for Defence, Douglas
Feith, both old friends of Wolfowitz. The group's public face is the
semi-official Defence Policy Board, headed by Perle. Perle and Feith wrote a
paper in 1996 called 'A Clean Break' for the then leader of Israel's Likud
bloc, Binyamin Netanyahu; the clean break was from the Oslo peace process.
Israel's 'claim to the land (including the West Bank) is legitimate and
noble,' said the paper. 'Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our
rights is a solid basis for the future.' At the State Department, the
'Arabist' faction of regional experts favouring the diplomacy of alliances
in the area was drowned out by the hawks, markedly by another new unit with
favoured access to the White House.

And in Rove's White House, with his backing, the circle was closed and the
last piece of the jigsaw was put in place, with the appointment of Elliot
Abrams to handle policy for the Middle East, for the National Security
Council.

Abrams is another veteran of Reagan days and the 'dirty wars' in Central
America, convicted by Congress for lying alongside Colonel Oliver North over
the Iran-Contra scandal, but pardoned by President Bush's father.

He has since written a book warning that American Jewry faces extinction
through intermarriage and has counselled against the peace process and for
the righteousness of Ariel Sharon's Israel. He is Wolfowitz's man, talking
every day to his office neighbour, Rove.

The Madness of Empire

The War Party's militarized strategy will unite the world against us.
http://www.amconmag.com/02_24_03/cover.html
By Scott McConnell

Recently the novelist John le Carré wrote in the Times of London that the
United States has entered a "period of madness" that dwarfs McCarthyism or
the Vietnam intervention in intensity. One generally would not pay much
attention to the cynical British spy-tale weaver, never especially friendly
to America. But concern about America's mental health is more broadly in the
air, spreading well beyond the usual professional anti-Americans. It is now
pervasive in Europe, and growing in Asia, and when Matt Drudge posted le
Carré's piece prominently on his website, it got passed around and talked
about here in ways it never would have five years ago.

The proximate cause of le Carré's diagnosis is Washington's plan for a
pre-emptive war against Iraq, a nation whose weapons pose no threat to the
United States and that has no substantial links to al-Qaeda or 9/11. The
U.S. would fight this war virtually without allies, though a few countries
might be dragged into the fray against the will of their populations. But
mad or not, this drive toward war is not mania of sudden onset but
ratification of a neo-imperialist strategy that has been germinating in
neoconservative circles since the end of the Cold War.

A new war against Iraq was a gleam in the eye of a small but influential
group long before 9/11. In 1998, the newly established Project for a New
American Century (PNAC), an advocacy group chaired by Weekly Standard editor
Bill Kristol, began sending open letters from prominent foreign policy
hawks. First, it wrote to the Clinton administration calling upon the United
States to "remove Saddam's regime." When its advice was ignored, PNAC asked
Republican Congressional leaders to push for war. The signatories included
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz (now number two at the Pentagon), Elliott
Abrams (recently appointed to the National Security Council as a director of
Mid-East policy), William Bennett, John Bolton (now Undersecretary of
State), and the ubiquitous Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy
Board and often considered the central figure the interlocking web of
neoconservative think tanks.

PNAC's ambitions go well beyond Saddam's overthrow. Immediately after 9/11,
the group began pushing to expand the war against other Muslim states,
calling for the U.S. to target Hezbollah and its sponsors, Iran and Syria.
PNAC also wants the U.S. to stop trying to foster a peace between Israel and
the Palestinians, advocating withdrawal of the small amount of aid the U.S.
gives the Palestinian Authority and granting full support to Israel's right
wing Likud government.

These tactical measures are elements within a broader vision of a more
militarized U.S. foreign policy, carried out without allies if necessary. In
the final year of the first Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz penned a
memo under the aegis of then Secretary of Defense Cheney, calling for the
United States to ramp up its defense spending in order to deter any other
country from "even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." China,
Russia, Germany, and Japan were to be intimidated from seeking more power in
their own regions. After the Wolfowitz draft was leaked to the press, it
received widespread ridicule, and the Bush I diplomats rushed to reassure
allies that Wolfowitz's views did not truly reflect American foreign policy.

But during the 1990s they did become the views of the neoconservatives,
packaged under the slogan "benevolent global hegemony" touted by Kristol and
Robert Kagan. The positions of the neoconservative foreign policy team in
exile (a sort of shadow subcabinet during the Clinton years) were fleshed
out in a PNAC book, Present Dangers, which called for the U.S. to "shape the
international environment to its own advantage" by being "at once a European
power, an Asian power, a Middle Eastern power, and of course a Western
Hemisphere power" and to "act as if instability in important regions of the
world ... affect[s] us with almost the same immediacy as if [it] was
occurring on our own doorstep." In practice this meant assertive risk-taking
virtually everywhere. Jonathan Clarke, reviewing the volume in the National
Interest, wrote, "If the book's recommendations were implemented all at
once, the U.S. would risk unilaterally fighting a five-front war, while
simultaneously urging Israel to abandon the peace process in favor of a new
no-holds-barred confrontation with the Palestinians." This book has become
the blueprint for the foreign policy of George W. Bush.

Only recently has it become commonplace (outside of the Marxist Left) to
call this new policy imperialist. President Bush himself still shuns the
word, telling a Veterans Day audience, "We have no territorial ambitions. We
don't seek an empire." But a surprising number of foreign policy analysts,
in the neocon orbit and beyond, have picked up the "I" word and run with it.
Max Boot, a former Wall Street Journal editor who wrote a book about
America's splendid little wars writes in the Weekly Standard about "troubled
lands [that] cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once
provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets." Kristol
co-author Robert Kagan prefers the term "hegenomy" to empire, and many
neoconservatives stress that the new American imperialism will differ from
the bad old European sort because it will be welcomed by its subjects. The
American Enterprise Institute's Joshua Muravchik has written a primer on
"exporting democracy" whose phrases now pop up regularly in Bushite
rhetoric.

The war for democracy is meant to bring about eternal peace. A television
sound-bite of the neo-imperialists is "democracies don't fight one another,"
though the generalization seems to ignore the bloodiest war in the 19th
century (America's Civil War) and arguably the one that brought about the
end of Europe's global pre-eminence (World War I). Never mind. The coda is
always Wilsonian, a claim that pre-emptive war will bring forth a springtime
of power to the people of the politically stagnant region.

None of this is entirely new of course: America's previous burst of imperial
expansion at the turn of the 20th century was accompanied by plenty of talk
about liberating our "brown brothers" from Spain's evil dominion and, later,
teaching Latin Americans to hold clean elections and "elect good men." The
phrases have come down to us through history class, but we do not remember
the elections because, by and large, they never took place.

Nor, it should be remembered, did the older European imperialists consider
themselves exploiters. The rulers and rhetoricians of France's and Britain's
empires were quite confident that they were bringing the benefits of
science, law, and rationality to poorer and backward peoples. Such claims
were self-serving but not entirely fanciful. Contrary to the standard
Leninist critique, imperialism was not a one-way transfer of wealth from
colony to metropole: Britain and France made large investments in capital
and education in their empires, in part producing the educated modernizing
nationalist class that eventually threw them out. Though some American hawks
have let on that establishing military bases astride the world's major oil
arteries would not be a distasteful burden, in today's Washington the war
against Iraq is not spoken of as an opportunity for plundering the region's
vital resources. The war will be fought to liberate the Iraqi people: never
before in the annals of neoconservative rhetoric have Arabs been talked
about so solicitously. (Cynics might note that Commentary and the Weekly
Standard showed little prior interest in bringing the benefits of democracy
to the three million Palestinians under Israeli occupation, where American
influence could have been brought to bear readily at almost any point in the
past thirty-five years.)

The prospects of this new militarized imperialism ought to be gauged by how
well it might succeed. Would it make Americans more secure? What are its
chances of democratizing the Middle East?

The strongest neo-imperialist case study is Japan, re-fashioned under
American military occupation from a semi-feudal militaristic dictatorship
that waged aggressive war into a semi-capitalist, reasonably democratic, and
very peaceable ally and trading partner of the United States. But the
differences between Japan and the Islamic nations our present-day
imperialists want to occupy are stark. Appreciation for the West and
democratic ideas was well rooted in Japan. The Japanese began to borrow
furiously from the West once Commodore Perry landed in 1853, in science and
military technology of course, but also in the world of ideas. Reading the
Western philosophes became a fad during the Meiji Restoration, which
initiated voting for Parliament in 1889 and had universal male suffrage by
the 1920s. Pushing the process along was an indigenous "liberty and popular
rights movement," which spawned dozens of autonomous political groups.
"Loyal opposition" was not an alien idea. Moreover, Japan's bureaucracy-a
samurai-based elite class that pre-dated the Meiji Restoration-was ready to
implement democratic reforms and put its own stamp on the new regime.
General MacArthur had much on which to build. Moreover, every country in
Asia wanted Japan transformed. The imposition of an entirely new order from
outside-MacArthur and his crew ended up writing the internal laws,
redistributing property, re-shaping the economy, and imposing a
constitution-was considered legitimate throughout the region. The
circumstances in the Mid-East, where American invasion is opposed vigorously
in the region and by three of the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council, could not be more different.

If prior conditions made Japan receptive to the imposition of democracy from
without, the general success rate of imperial powers in molding occupations
to their liking is poor. Both Britain and France tried mightily to form a
suitable "indigenous" elite in their colonies, neither with much success.
The ascending middle classes demanded access to education, but British and
French administrators quickly learned the more natives were educated, the
more colonial rule angered them. Britain gave up its empire without too much
strife, but France was driven out of Indochina by a bloody guerilla war and
from an Algerian colony (bound to the mother country with "indissoluble
links" according to the language of the time) by a fierce campaign of
terror. One hears echoes of the arguments made by colonialist Frenchmen in
the mouths of America's neo-imperialists: if the Algerian nationalists
prevailed, they would subject the Algerians to all the horrors of
autocratic, quasi-fascist domination. Such arguments were, as Raymond Aron
wrote at the time, true but irrelevant: colonized people rated national
independence more highly than they did the rights of the individual.

This is especially true in the Islamic world. Roger Scruton in The West and
the Rest comes to this conclusion on the deeper divergences in political
culture that seem to flow from Islam and Christianity respectively: "The
virtues of Western political systems are, to a certain kind of Islamic mind,
imperceptible-or perceptible, as they were to Qutb and Atta, only as hideous
moral failings. Even while enjoying the peace, prosperity, and freedom that
issue from a secular rule of law, a person who regards the shari'a as the
unique path to salvation may see these things only as signs of spiritual
emptiness or corruption." Perhaps skeptical thinkers like Aron and Scruton
are wrong and the neocon cheerleaders for imperialistic democracy-imposition
are right, but one would not want to bet America's future on it.

Then there is the reaction of the world to consider, after the United States
rains cruise missiles on Baghdad, seizes the Iraqi oil fields and "the next
day" (as Ariel Sharon urges) prepares for war against Iran. One can imagine
that the Saudis will fall into a political panic, that Europe will be
enraged, that Russia and China will be cooly hostile and begin to make
plans. What impact would the Iraq invasion have on the international system?

During the Clinton years, quite a few international affairs specialists
wondered why American pre-eminence had not given rise to the kind of
counterbalancing and ganging up against the leading power that classic
international relations theory and diplomatic history would lead one to
expect. Russia and China briefly eyed one another as allies, the Europeans
griped, but nowhere did major countries come close to forming real military
alliances to counter America's strength. Why not?

The most persuasive answer came from Joseph Joffe, a conservative
pro-Atlanticist German. He wrote that while there was plenty of smoldering
resentment of American power, no one felt it necessary to ally against it.
The United States was a hegemon "different from all its predecessors.
America annoys and antagonizes, but it does not conquer. ... This is a
critical departure from the traditional ways of the high and mighty. For the
balance of power machinery to crank up, it makes a difference whether the
rest of the world faces a huge but unusually placid elephant or a caniverous
tyrannosaurus rex." America is an elephant that lumbers but does not crush
and that uses its hegemony to create "public goods"-institutions that the
rest needs for security and economic growth.

If America invades Iraq, the bottom will fall out of this argument. The
first consequence would probably be sharp drop in international co-operation
against terrorism, especially terrorism directed against the United States.
After that, we can contemplate new alliances: Russia and China, Europe and
the (unoccupied) Middle East, an international system in rapid flux but
increasingly focused on restraining American power. Of course, the United
States will always have Israel as its friend.

Consider America's international situation: a country rich and
technologicially advanced, blessed with unusually stable political system,
separated from hostile countries by huge oceans, and still retaining durable
long term friendships with the world's most powerful and successful
democratic states, and requiring serious international police and
intelligence cooperation to deal with its most pressing enemy, al-Qaeda. For
such a nation suddenly to decide that its best and only option to "save
itself" is to embark on a course of imperial expansion, one that will be
opposed vigorously by the rest of the world, seems almost a form of madness.

Guest-c651

Richard Perle about "regime change" in Iraq [Worth reading]

iraqicommunity-Message 1665.,Tue Feb 25, 2003.

Worth reading
----------------------------------------

Interview: 'Even if Saddam worked for us it is time for us to throw
him out'

London |By Amir Taheri | 23-02-2003

His political enemies have labelled him "The Prince of Darkness"
while his friends claim that he is one of the "best strategic
brains" in Washington. All agree that Richard Perle, who chairs the
all-powerful Defence Policy Board, is one of the key hands in
shaping President George W. Bush's global strategy.

One of the architects of the policy of "regime change" in Iraq,
Perle plays a crucial behind-the-scenes role in all diplomatic,
political and military aspects of what looks like a deepening crisis.

In an exclusive interview conducted during a recent visit to London,
Perle responded to our questions.

Excerpts:

Question: Some people in the Arab world believe that Saddam Hussain
works for you.
Answer: Why is that?

"It's a long story. But the main theme is that Saddam, by
threatening and sometimes actually invading Iraq's neighbours,
forced many countries in the region to come under the U.S. umbrella
and even invite American military presence. He also waged war
against the revolution in Iran for eight years, helping you contain
that particular enemy at no cost to yourself. The result of all that
is there is now a quarter of a million American troops where there
was none just three decades ago. The U.S. has some military presence
in all but five of the Arab states. And now, by making an unequal
war inevitable, he is just trying to present Iraq to you on a golden
plate..."

A:Interesting analysis. But I can tell you one thing: even if Saddam
worked for us it is time for us to chuck him out. We are not
interested in maintaining troops outside our own territory just for
the fun of it. The United States was not designed or destined to
become an imperial power. You will not find anywhere in the world
where we intervened militarily and set up a colonial empire.

Our problem with Saddam Hussain is twofold. First, he is clearly
determined to build up his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction
which he could use against our allies in the region and, later, even
against Europe and the United States. The simple truth is that we
cannot trust him.

Therefore, we cannot turn our face away and let him to do whatever
he likes in violation of the ceasefire accords of 1991 and 18
Security Council resolutions. The second reason for our position is
that we believe the Iraqi people deserve a better government.

Q:Some Arabs believe you want Iraq's oil

A:The answer to that question will be given by what we shall all see
very soon. Iraqi oil belongs to the people of Iraq and whoever is
prepared to buy it at world prices. Even now the American market
absorbs most of Iraq's oil.

Q:Some Arabs see you as an enemy

A:They are wrong. Saddam Hussain is not the symbol of Arab dreams,
hopes and aspirations. No one has harmed Arab interests as much as
he has in the past few decades. All that I want is for Arabs to be
able to elect their own governments, hold them accountable.

All I want is for the Arabs to have a robust open market economy so
that they can have a share in the fantastic prosperity created by
the new global economy. Why is it that the Arab countries are
absolutely the only ones whose real income per head has fallen in
the past two decades?

A friend is not one who flatters you and congratulates you for your
weaknesses. A friend is he who criticises you. I want the Arabs to
ask themselves why are they weak and confused? The answer is:
because they are not free. Because they have suffered from leaders
like Saddam Hussain.

Q:Are the Arabs ready for the kind of Western-style system you
preach?

A:I think they are. At least they must be given a chance. When they
had a chance, several Arab countries were slowly building democracy 
among them Iraq and Egypt. And today several Arab states are taking
risks with reform and change. The Arabs have a great culture and
civilisation behind them. So, why should they be shut out of
contemporary civilisation?

Q:So, you think that post-Saddam Iraq will be a model for all Arabs?

A:I don't believe in models. You can never generalise in these
things. Each country has its own traditions, its own dynamism for
reform. It is not for us to tell anyone how to do things. All that
we are saying is that people should not be imprisoned or killed
because of their opinions, that governments should be answerable to
people, and that the national economy is not a thieves' bazaar for
the rulers.

Q:One of your former advisors Laurent Murawiec says that Saudi
Arabia should be regarded as "Enemy Number One" of the United States
and even invaded and carved into five mini-states. Do you agree?

A:No, I don't. Saudi Arabia is a valuable ally. There are aspects of
Saudi policy with which we disagree just as there are aspects of our
policy that the Saudis do not like. So we tell them what we think
and they tell us what they think.

I must also tell you that Saudi Arabia is not a monolith. Not all
Saudis think and behave alike. There is a wide-range of opinion on
all key issues in the kingdom where we have solid friends. The
reform plan proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz contains
some interesting suggestions. It could provide the Arabs with a
roadmap for collective change.

Q:There are frequent reports about plans to persuade Saddam Hussain
to step down and go into exile, thus preventing a war.

A:I know. But we will not accept fudge. We will not accept a half
solution under which the Iraqis will end up with a light version of
Saddam. What we are talking about is regime change, not just a
change of personnel.

Saddam is both the cause and the effect of an evil system that has
brought so much suffering to the people of Iraq. That system must
go. If Saddam's departure into exile is the first step to the kind
of change I am talking about, very well. If not, no thanks.

Q:From what you say it seems to me that war has become inevitable

A:War was never ruled out as an option. But nothing is inevitable
until it has happened. Obviously, the final word must come from
President George W. Bush.

Q:Could it come soon? And how long do you think the war would take?

A:My hunch is that it will come soon. My understanding is that we
can wrap the whole thing in 30 days.

Q:So there is no chance that in November 2004 when there will be
another U.S. presidential election we shall still have Saddam
Hussain in power in Baghdad pointing to the scalp of a second
President Bush on his wall?

A:No chance. Guaranteed.

Q: Will the U.S. go to war even without a second UN resolution?

A:Anyone with a smallest doe of fairness would know that, legally
speaking, we do not need a second resolution. We didn't even need
1441. The Security Council gave Iraq 60 days to disarm back in 1991.
One thing is certain: we will not allow manoeuvrings over a second
resolution to be used as a tactic to buy Saddam more time.

Q:What if France vetoes a second resolution that authorises the use
of force?

A:That won't happen. The last time France vetoed an American
resolution was in 1956. At that time the U.S. wanted French, British
and Israeli forces to immediately evacuate the Sinai that they had
captured from Egypt in the Suez War. The French veto had no real
effect. The U.S. succeeded in making sure that Egyptian territory
was evacuated.

Q:Does this mean the U.S. will ignore a French veto?

A:Certainly. If a veto can dictate our policy then France would be
regarded as the master of the world. In any case, there will be no
French veto. The French know that if they veto we shall ignore them.
They would also know that Saddam Hussain couldn't win. So, what
would be the sense of antagonising a victorious U.S. to please a
losing Saddam?

Q:I don't know. But I can tell you that President Jacques Chirac
seems determined to make life as hard as he can for you. He cannot
accept that the U.S. should have the power to go around changing
regimes it does not like

A:I don't agree with your analysis. Just before the war starts
France will jump on our side. It has happened all the time, most
recently in Afghanistan. The French behaved in exactly the same way
last time when Saddam had invaded Kuwait.

Let me tell you something more important: the French attitude makes
war more likely. It gives Saddam false hope that things can be
dragged on and on until the next American presidential election.
Thus Saddam sees no reason why he should really show his weapons to
the inspectors.

That gives us the clear reason we need for attacking him. Thus,
Chirac's policy will, in the final analysis, lead to Saddam's
destruction.

Q:Isn't there a subtext to the French position, one linked to French
oil interests in Iraq?

A:The French company Total has signed a $40 billion oil deal with
the Iraqis. Paris is, therefore, anxious to preserve that. But many
Iraqis say the contract is unfair and one-sided. They want it to be
renegotiated in favour of Iraq. But that is not an issue for us. It
is the future Iraqi government that would decide what do with the
country's oil and other resources.

There is no reason why France, which has a long presence in Iraq,
should be excluded from normal and mutually beneficial deals. Let me
repeat that we are not in this for oil. We are in this for something
much more important than oil: our future security and the security
of our allies in the region.

Q:Is there enough Arab support for the American position?

A:More than enough. Not a single Arab state is making the slightest
move against our policy on this issue. And at least a dozen are
actively cooperating with us in whatever field we require.

Q:Could you tell us which ones?

A:No. I am not their spokesman. What interests me is that almost all
Arab states are showing a sense of realism and an understanding of
their own interests on this issue.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told us recently in Davos that the
U.S. had 12 allies in the coming war
As soon as it becomes clear that we are going to war we shall have
plenty of allies. But even if we didn't have a single ally, we would
still do what needs to be done. One way or another, and sooner
rather than later, Saddam Hussain must go, that's the message.

Q:Who will be your next target? Iran, Syria, Libya?

Change is needed in all those three countries, and a few others
besides. But the Iraqi case is unique. I think Iran can be changed
by the action of the Iranian people. We shall provide whatever
support they need to ensure the success of the reform movement.

I believe that Syria, too, can organise change from within. As for
Libya, it is a weird case. For the time being it is out of world
reality. But the colonel knows that we have our eyes on him.

Q:In Davos, Colin Powell told us that there would be a Palestinian
state by 2005...

A:2005 is a long way off. Once the Iraqi situation is settled we can
move faster. The president's "two-states" vision is already clear.
We also have a road map. We are convinced that, without the
settlement of the Palestinian issue, new political architecture of
the Middle East would not be possible.

Q:Can the U.S. handle the Iraqi conflict and the North Koran crisis
at the same time?

A:Certainly. For the past 20 years we have worked on a strategy that
enables us to fight at least two major wars simultaneously. We are
not going to let North Korea off the hook simply because we are
working to get rid of Saddam.

Qo you plan to impose a military occupation of Iraq?

A:No. Our first task is to topple the dictatorship and destroy its
weapons. We shall then have the task of ensuring security and law
and order for a brief period during which the new Iraqi government
establishes itself and rebuilds its police and armed forces.

The Iraqis will have the opportunity to have a new constitution,
hold elections and produce a government of their own choosing. Once
that government asks us to leave, we shall leave.

Q:So, all this talk about an American ruler for Iraq is out of
place? I have heard many names including Colin Powell and even
former Senator George Mitchell...

A:Mitchell? You must be kidding. No, Iraq does not need an American
ruler. We had to assume direct rule in Germany and Japan after the
Second World War because there were no alternative forces in those
countries at the time.

The majority of the Germans had supported Hitler and the majority of
the Japanese had endorsed the policies of their military rulers. In
Iraq, however, the majority is against Saddam Hussain. There are
Iraqis from all shades of opinion to come together and create a
pluralist system.

You can have two-dozen political parties covering the whole spectrum
in Iraq. There are also many competent, experienced, well-educated
and dedicated Iraqis to assume control of their country and rebuild
it. They won't need an American ruler. Iraq is to be a model of
democracy, not a model of American military rule.

Q:A word about Turkey and Iran. Do you have their support?

A:As much as needed. Turkey is an ally, and Iran knows what it must
do.

Q:Nevertheless, the Turks are making noises about the Treaty of
Lausanne that gives them the so-called "right of observance" in
northern Iraq, especially in the oil regions of Mosul and Kirkuk.
Iran, for its part, talks about the Erzerum Treaty that gives Tehran
some say in the affairs of the Shiite holy shrines in southern Iraq.

A:I don't know about all that. All I can say is that we shall not
allow anyone to threaten Iraq's independence, territorial integrity
and full sovereignty. Turkey has received assurances about the
Turkmen minority in northern Iraq.

It is also aware of the fact that it cannot create an empire in
northern Iraq. As for Iran, whatever the Shiites do about their
shrines is their private matter. The new Iraqi government will not
allow any foreign intervention.

Q:What is the timetable? Would there be a new Iraqi regime in time
for the Arab summit, perhaps in spring?

A:Why not?

Guest-c651

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/27/warmongering-bush-speech-from-last-night.php

klaas17 · Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 7:27 am Post subject: Bush as follower of Mussolini

Blood Money

The first step towards the establishment of this Pax Americana is, and has always been, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq.

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 27 February 2003

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
- President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961.

George W. Bush gave a speech Wednesday night before the Godfather of conservative Washington think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute. In his speech, Bush quantified his coming war with Iraq as part of a larger struggle to bring pro-western governments into power in the Middle East. Couched in hopeful language describing peace and freedom for all, the speech was in fact the closest articulation of the actual plan for Iraq that has yet been heard from the administration.

In a previous article from February 21, the ideological connections between an extremist right-wing Washington think tank and the foreign policy aspirations of the Bush administration were detailed.

The Project for a New American Century, or PNAC, is a group founded in 1997 that has been agitating since its inception for a war with Iraq. PNAC was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act, a bill that painted a veneer of legality over the ultimate designs behind such a conflict. The names of every prominent PNAC member were on a letter delivered to President Clinton in 1998 which castigated him for not implementing the Act by driving troops into Baghdad.

PNAC has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to a Hussein opposition group called the Iraqi National Congress, and to Iraq's heir-apparent, Ahmed Chalabi, despite the fact that Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison on 31 counts of bank fraud. Chalabi and the INC have, over the years, gathered support for their cause by promising oil contracts to anyone that would help to put them in power in Iraq.

Most recently, PNAC created a new group called The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Staffed entirely by PNAC members, The Committee has set out to "educate" Americans via cable news connections about the need for war in Iraq. This group met recently with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice regarding the ways and means of this education.

Who is PNAC? Its members include:

* Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the PNAC founders, who served as Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr.;

* I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's top national security assistant;

* Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, also a founding member, along with four of his chief aides including;

* Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, arguably the ideological father of the group;

* Eliot Abrams, prominent member of Bush's National Security Council, who was pardoned by Bush Sr. in the Iran/Contra scandal;

* John Bolton, who serves as Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security in the Bush administration;

* Richard Perle, former Reagan administration official and present chairman of the powerful Defense Policy Board;

* Randy Scheunemann, President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, who was Trent Lott's national security aide and who served as an advisor to Rumsfeld on Iraq in 2001;

* Bruce Jackson, Chairman of PNAC, a position he took after serving for years as vice president of weapons manufacturer Lockheed-Martin, and who also headed the Republican Party Platform subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Policy during the 2000 campaign. His section of the 2000 GOP Platform explicitly called for the removal of Saddam Hussein;

* William Kristol, noted conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, a magazine owned along with the Fox News Network by conservative media mogul Ruppert Murdoch.

The Project for the New American Century seeks to establish what they call 'Pax Americana' across the globe. Essentially, their goal is to transform America, the sole remaining superpower, into a planetary empire by force of arms. A report released by PNAC in September of 2000 entitled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' codifies this plan, which requires a massive increase in defense spending and the fighting of several major theater wars in order to establish American dominance. The first has been achieved in Bush's new budget plan, which calls for the exact dollar amount to be spent on defense that was requested by PNAC in 2000. Arrangements are underway for the fighting of the wars.

The men from PNAC are in a perfect position to see their foreign policy schemes, hatched in 1997, brought into reality. They control the White House, the Pentagon and Defense Department, by way of this the armed forces and intelligence communities, and have at their feet a Republican-dominated Congress that will rubber-stamp virtually everything on their wish list.

The first step towards the establishment of this Pax Americana is, and has always been, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq. The purpose of this is threefold: 1) To acquire control of the oilheads so as to fund the entire enterprise; 2) To fire a warning shot across the bows of every leader in the Middle East; 3) To establish in Iraq a military staging area for the eventual invasion and overthrow of several Middle Eastern regimes, including some that are allies of the United States.

Another PNAC signatory, author Norman Podhoretz, quantified this aspect of the grand plan in the September 2002 issue of his journal, 'Commentary'. In it, Podhoretz notes that the regimes, "that richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced, are not confined to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil. At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as 'friends' of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority, whether headed by Arafat or one of his henchmen." At bottom, for Podhoretz, this action is about "the long-overdue internal reform and modernization of Islam."

This casts Bush's speech to AEI on Wednesday in a completely different light.

Weapons of mass destruction are a smokescreen. Paeans to the idea of Iraqi liberation and democratization are cynical in their inception. At the end of the day, this is not even about oil. The drive behind this war is ideological in nature, a crusade to 'reform' the religion of Islam as it exists in both government and society within the Middle East. Once this is accomplished, the road to empire will be open, ten lanes wide and steppin' out over the line.

At the end of the day, however, ideology is only good for bull sessions in the board room and the bar. Something has to grease the skids, to make the whole thing worthwhile to those involved, and entice those outside the loop to get into the game.

Thus, the payout.

It is well known by now that Dick Cheney, before becoming Vice President, served as chairman and chief executive of the Dallas-based petroleum corporation Halliburton. During his tenure, according to oil industry executives and United Nations records, Halliburton did a brisk $73 million in business with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. While working face-to-face with Hussein, Cheney and Halliburton were also moving into position to capitalize upon Hussein's removal from power. In October of 1995, the same month Cheney was made CEO of Halliburton, that company announced a deal that would put it first in line should war break out in Iraq. Their job: To take control of burning oil wells, put out the fires, and prepare them for service.

Another corporation that stands to do well by a war in Iraq is Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Ostensibly, Brown & Root is in the construction business, and thus has won a share of the $900 million government contract for the rebuilding of post-war Iraqi bridges, roads and other basic infrastructure. This is but the tip of the financial iceberg, as the oil wells will also have to be repaired after parent-company Halliburton puts out the fires.

More ominously is Brown & Root's stock in trade: the building of permanent American military bases. There are twelve permanent U.S. bases in Kosovo today, all built and maintained by Brown & Root for a multi-billion dollar profit. If anyone should wonder why the administration has not offered an exit strategy to the Iraq war plans, the presence of Brown & Root should answer them succinctly. We do not plan on exiting. In all likelihood, Brown & Root is in Iraq to build permanent bases there, from which attacks upon other Middle Eastern nations can be staged and managed.

Again, this casts Bush's speech on Wednesday in a new light.

Being at the center of the action is nothing new for Halliburton and Brown & Root. The two companies have worked closely with governments in Algeria, Angola, Bosnia, Burma, Croatia, Haiti, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Somalia during the worst chapters in those nation's histories. Many environmental and human rights groups claim that Cheney, Halliburton and Brown & Root were, in fact, centrally involved in these fiascos. More recently, Brown & Root was contracted by the Defense Department to build cells for detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bill for that one project came to $300 million.

Cheney became involved with PNAC officially in 1997, while still profiting from deals between Halliburton and Hussein. One year later, Cheney and PNAC began actively and publicly agitating for war on Iraq. They have not stopped to this very day.

Another company with a vested interest in both war on Iraq and massively increased defense spending is the Carlyle Group. Carlyle, a private global investment firm with more than $12.5 billion in capital under management, was formed in 1987. Its interests are spread across 164 companies, including telecommunications firms and defense contractors. It is staffed at the highest levels by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. Former President George H. W. Bush is himself employed by Carlyle as a senior advisor, as is long-time Bush family advisor and former Secretary of State James Baker III.

One company acquired by Carlyle is United Defense, a weapons manufacturer based in Arlington, VA. United Defense provides the Defense Department with combat vehicle systems, fire support, combat support vehicle systems, weapons delivery systems, amphibious assault vehicles, combat support services and naval armaments. Specifically, United Defense manufactures the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the M113 armored personnel carrier, the M88A2 Recovery Vehicle, the Grizzly, the M9 ACE, the Composite Armored Vehicle, the M6 Linebacker, the M7 BFIST, the Armored Gun System, the M4 Command and Control Vehicle, the Battle Command Vehicle, the Paladin, the Crusader, and Electric Gun/Pulse Power weapons technology.

In other words, everything a growing Defense Department, a war in Iraq, and a burgeoning American military empire needs.

Ironically, one group that won't profit from Carlyle's involvement in American military buildup is the family of Osama bin Laden. The bin Laden family fortune was amassed by Mohammed bin Laden, father of Osama, who built a multi-billion dollar construction empire through contracts with the Saudi government. The Saudi BinLaden Group, as this company is called, was heavily invested in Carlyle for years. Specifically, they were invested in Carlyle's Partners II Fund, which includes in that portfolio United Defense and other weapons manufacturers.

This relationship was described in a September 27, 2001 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled 'Bin Laden Family Could Profit From Jump in Defense Spending Due to Ties to US Bank.' The 'bank' in question was the Carlyle Group. A follow-up article published by the Journal on September 28 entitled ' Bin Laden Family Has Intricate Ties With Washington - Saudi Clan Has Had Access To Influential Republicans ' further describes the relationship. In October of 2001, Saudi BinLaden and Carlyle severed their relationship by mutual agreement. The timing is auspicious.

There are a number of depths to be plumbed in all of this. The Bush administration has claimed all along that this war with Iraq is about Saddam Hussein's connections to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, though through it all they have roundly failed to establish any basis for either accusation. On Wednesday, Bush went further to claim that the war is about liberating the Iraqi people and bringing democracy to the Middle East. This ignores cultural realities on the ground in Iraq and throughout the region that, salted with decades of deep mistrust for American motives, make such a democracy movement brought at the point of the sword utterly impossible to achieve.

This movement, cloaked in democracy, is in fact a PNAC-inspired push for an American global empire. It behooves Americans to understand that there is a great difference between being the citizen of a constitutional democracy and being a citizen of an empire. The establishment of an empire requires some significant sacrifices.

Essential social, medical, educational and retirement services will have to be gutted so that those funds can be directed towards a necessary military buildup. Actions taken abroad to establish the preeminence of American power, most specifically in the Middle East, will bring a torrent of terrorist attacks to the home front. Such attacks will bring about the final suspension of constitutional rights and the rule of habeas corpus, as we will find ourselves under martial law. In the end, however, this may be inevitable. An empire cannot function with the slow, cumbersome machine of a constitutional democracy on its back. Empires must be ruled with speed and ruthlessness, in a manner utterly antithetical to the way in which America has been governed for 227 years.

And yes, of course, a great many people will die.

It would be one thing if all of this was based purely on the ideology of our leaders. It is another thing altogether to consider the incredible profit motive behind it all. The President, his father, the Vice President, a whole host of powerful government officials, along with stockholders and executives from Halliburton and Carlyle, stand to make a mint off this war. Long-time corporate sponsors from the defense, construction and petroleum industries will likewise profit enormously.

Critics of the Bush administration like to bandy about the word "fascist" when speaking of George. The image that word conjures is of Nazi stormtroopers marching in unison towards Hitler's Final Solution. This does not at all fit. It is better, in this matter, to view the Bush administration through the eyes of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini, dubbed 'the father of Fascism,' defined the word in a far more pertinent fashion. "Fascism," said Mussolini, "should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

Boycott the French, the Germans, and the other 114 nations who stand against this Iraq war all you wish. France and Germany do not oppose Bush because they are cowards, or because they enjoy the existence of Saddam Hussein. France and Germany stand against the Bush administration because they intend to stop this Pax Americana in its tracks if they can. They have seen militant fascism up close and personal before, and wish never to see it again.

Would that we Americans could be so wise.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times bestselling author of two books - "War On Iraq" (with Scott Ritter) available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available in May 2003 from Pluto Press. He teaches high school in Boston, MA.

Alpha

JINSA Zionist Extremists (PUSHING US TO WAR) are associated with the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) which is mentioned in the Guardian newspaper article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,903073,00.html

Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus. So says the latest hot polemic exciting transatlantic policy types: Robert Kagan's Paradise and Power, a meditation on how Europeans have grown soft and idealistic (and feminine) while the Yanks remain tough, booted and aware (like real men) of how brutal a place the world can be. According to Kagan, our outlooks have grown so far apart that it's time we stopped pretending we even "occupy the same world". We are from different planets. Maybe that explains why so many Europeans are not just on the opposite side from the US in the debate over the coming war on Iraq, but why we are not even having the same conversation. While we still agonise over whether or not to go to war - forcing our prime minister to make and remake his case, even if that means taking an hour of questions on MTV, as he will next Friday - the American conversation moved on long ago. With barely a peep of congressional opposition to a military attack against Saddam, and most Democrats reduced to silent compliance, the Washington village has taken it as read, both that war will happen, and that it is justified. Their debate is focusing instead on a different question: what next? It might be a simple function of power. We sit back making abstract, moral judgments while they, as the nation poised to do the business, concern themselves with practicalities. We are not quite spectators - 40,000 Brits will be involved, after all - but nor do we have the prime spot in the dugout, making the key decisions. Those will be made in Washington. Whatever the explanation, the gulf between us is real. The op-ed pages of the American papers have the odd thumb-suck on the rights and wrongs of prising Saddam out by force, but their more pressing interest (besides pouring bile on the surrender monkeys of France and Germany) is in the task that will face the great US Army of Liberation once its initial work is done. There is, for example, an argument about personnel. Should the American governor-general ruling newly free Iraq be a civilian - perhaps the former nuclear weapons inspector, David Kay, or Bush-friendly lawyer Michael Mobbs - or a soldier? Surely a man in a suit would smack less of military occupation, and therefore be the more tactful choice? On the other hand, a uniformed viceroy might repeat the magic worked when Douglas MacArthur oversaw Japan. If that's the precedent, then retired lieutenant general and veteran of the first Gulf war, Jay Garner, would be a frontrunner. Or would it be smarter-to- name, Arabic-speaking Lebanese-American General John Abizaid, amusingly known as "Mad Arab" to his colleagues? Such are the dilemmas preoccupying pre-occupier America. There are mechanical questions to ponder, too. Which system would work best? If not a formal military occupation, perhaps a Kosovo-style civilian administration? Or an interim government made up, à la Afghanistan, of multiple opposition groups, returned to Iraq after decades of exile? Or would it be more convenient simply to replace Saddam with a new strongman: whether a former Ba'athist suitably made over and rebranded as "pro-western" or an outsider, like Jordan's Prince Hassan, a cousin of Iraq's last king who was assassinated in 1958? Decisions, decisions. And the US will, barring the most dramatic change of heart by either Saddam Hussein or George Bush, be making them soon. What they will turn on will be more than operational matters of efficiency. They will go instead to the heart of why America is fighting this war. For if this conflict's chief aim is what the new, second UN resolution claims it to be - the simple disarmament of Iraq - then any postwar settlement would be devised around that objective: perhaps a new, compliant dictator would do that job best. If the goal is the one touted by Tony Blair in recent days as the moral case - namely, liberation from tyranny - then only a fresh, democratic start will do. If, however, the American victors insist on a much more robust level of US control - restructuring Iraq entirely, studding it with countless military bases - then we could start drawing rather different conclusions as to the true motive of this campaign. We might agree with those who detect in the Iraq adventure the opening move of a much grander American design: the establishing of US hegemony for the next 100 years. This is not just twitchy, anti-war conspiracy talk. An outfit exists on 17th Street in Washington, DC, called the Project for the New American Century, explicitly committed to US mastery of the globe for the coming age. Its acolytes speak of "full spectrum dominance", meaning American invincibility in every field of warfare - land, sea, air and space - and a world in which no two nations' relationship with each other will be more important than their relationship with the US. There will be no place on earth, or the heavens for that matter, where Washington's writ does not run supreme. To that end, a ring of US military bases should surround China, with liberation of the People's Republic considered the ultimate prize. As one enthusiast puts it concisely: "After Baghdad, Beijing." If this sounds like the harmless delusions of an eccentric fringe, think again. The founder members of the project, launched in 1997 as a Republican assault on the Clinton presidency, form a rollcall of today's Bush inner circle. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle - they're all there. So too is Zalmay Khalilzad, now the White House's "special envoy and ambassador-at-large for free Iraqis". It will not be the war itself which will reveal these ultras' true intent. That would be fought the same way whatever the underlying motive: overwhelming force aimed at a swift decapitation of the Iraqi regime. But the postwar occupation will reveal plenty. Then we will know if the hawkish dreamers of the project have indeed taken over US foreign policy. How they remake free Iraq will tell us whether they plan to remake the world. In other words, this is one debate we cannot afford to sit out. As US commentator Sandra Mackay wrote this month: "Washington's hawks understand that the real risks ... are not in war, but in the peace that follows." It's after victory that the most enduring impact will be felt, whether it be a hated US-led occupation, sparking a fresh round of global terrorism, or the sudden release of Iraq's lethal, internal tensions which Saddam has kept pent-up for 35 years. Kurds could fight Turks for their own state in the north; Shias might team up with Iran for control of the south; everyone may turn on the hated Saddamite Ba'athists in a frenzy of revenge. Iraq will not be like 1940s Japan or Germany, the occupations fondly remembered by the US commentariat. Those were coherent nations; Iraq is an artificial fusion of antagonistic tribes. Victory may be rapid and easy - but that's when the real trouble could start. j.freedland@guardian.co.uk

PNAC Group....The List of Players:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/31/pnac-group-the-list-of-players.php

JINSA (Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs) Zionist Extremist Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' before Bush Presidency:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php

Wake Up America: YOUR GOVERNMENT IS HIJACKED BY ZIONISM:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/09/29/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism.php

Iraq Invasion: British MP Asks "Why Now"?:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/25/iraq-invasion-british-mp-asks-why-now.php

Conflict to Leave Millions Hungry/Don't be Fooled by US Claims of Democracy:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/03/01/conflict-to-leave-millions-hungry-don-t-be-fooled-by-us.php

Israeli Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth with 9/11:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/16/israeli-spy-rumors-fly-on-gusts-of-truth-with-9-11.php

Below I included the text of President Bush's speech from last night at the American Enterprise Institute which is a ardent pro-Israel (Zionist) think tank in Washington, D.C. that Richard Perle is associated with (notice how President Bush mentions that he has 20 "minds" from the American Enterprise Institute who are working with his current regime, so no wonder he has such a pro-Israel bias):

Zionist Think Tanks Pushing for US Invasion of Iraq:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html

Washington's Zionist hawks to reshape Mid-East for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/10/25/washington-s-zionist-hawks-to-reshape-mid-east-for-israel.php

President Bush mentioned (in the speech) that he would like a Palestinian state created by 2005 in order to (apparently) placate the Arab countries in the Gulf region (which are concerned by the Palestinian situation in occupied Palestine) for continued use of their respective bases for US military operations (however, in reality, President Bush has Zionist extremists like Elliott Abrams and Doug Feith of JINSA who helped to sabotage the Oslo Peace Accords between the Israelis and Palestinians because they do not believe in a Palestinian state):

Return of Zionist Extremist Elliott Abrams (there is also an article about "transfer/ethnic cleansing the Palestinians off their ancestral homeland and into neighboring Jordan):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/04/return-of-zionist-extremist-elliott-abrams.php

War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/10/the-war-on-iraq-conceived-in-israel.php

Zionist Richard Perle : 'Inspections Or Not, We'll Attack Iraq':

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/24/zionist-richard-perle-inspections-or-not-we-ll-attack-iraq.php

JINSA Zionist Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' Long before Bush Presidency:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php

Israeli Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth with 9/11:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/16/israeli-spy-rumors-fly-on-gusts-of-truth-with-9-11.php

Text of Bush's Speech Wednesday Night
Wed Feb 26,10:19 PM ET

By The Associated Press Text of President Bush (news - web sites)'s remarks Wednesday night to the American Enterprise Institute, as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks Inc.:

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm proud to be with the scholars and the friends and the supporters of the American Enterprise Institute. I want to thank you for overlooking my dress code violation. They were about to stop me at the door, but Irving Kristol said, 'I know this guy, let him in.' Chris, thank you for your very kind introduction and thank you for your leadership. I see many distinguished guests here tonight, members of my Cabinet, members of Congress, Justice (Antonin) Scalia, Justice (Clarence) Thomas and so many respected writers and policy experts. I'm always happy to see your senior fellow, Dr. Lynne Cheney. Lynne is a wise and thoughtful commentator on history and culture and a dear friend to Laura and me. I'm also familiar with the good work of her husband. You may remember him, the former director of my vice presidential search committee. Thank God Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said yes. Thanks for fitting me into the program tonight. I know I'm not the featured speaker; I'm just a warm-up act for Allan Meltzer. But I want to congratulate Dr. Meltzer for a lifetime of achievements and for tonight's well-deserved honor. Congratulations. At the American Enterprise Institute, some of the finest minds in our nation are at work and some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds. I want to thank them for their service, but I also want to remind people that for 60 years AEI scholars have made vital contributions to our country and to our government and we are grateful for those contributions. We meet here during a crucial period in the history of our nation and of the civilized world. Part of that history was written by others, the rest will be written by us. On a September morning, threats that had gathered for years in secret and far away, led to murder in our country on a massive scale. As a result, we must look at security in a new way because our country is a battlefield in the first war of the 21st century. We learned a lesson: The dangers of our time must be confronted actively and forcefully before we see them again in our skies and in our cities. And we set a goal: We will not allow the triumph of hatred and violence in the affairs of men. Our coalition of more than 90 countries is pursuing the networks of terror with every tool of law enforcement and with military power. We have arrested, or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of al-Qaida. Across the world we are hunting down the killers one by one. We are winning and we're showing them the definition of American justice. And we're opposing the greatest danger in the war on terror, outlaw regimes arming with weapons of mass destruction. In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world and we will not allow it. This same tyrant has close ties to terrorist organizations and could supply them with the terrible means to strike this country, and America will not permit it. The danger posed by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away. The danger must be confronted. We hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations (news - web sites) and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat. Acting against the danger will also contribute greatly to the long-term safety and stability of our world. The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East.
A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform this vital region by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interest in security and America's belief in liberty both lead in the same direction, to a free and peaceful Iraq. The first to benefit from a free Iraq would be the Iraqi people themselves. Today they live in scarcity and fear, under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war and misery and torture. Their lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein, but Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us. Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy, yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them. If we must use force, the United States and our coalition stand ready to help the citizens of a liberated Iraq. We will deliver medicine to the sick, and we are now moving in to place nearly 3 million emergency rations to feed the hungry. We'll make sure that Iraq's 55,000 food distribution sites operating under the Oil for Food program are stocked and open as soon as possible. The United States and Great Britain are providing tens of millions of dollars to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and to such groups as the World Food Program and UNICEF (news - web sites) to provide emergency aid to the Iraqi people. We'll also lead in carrying out the urgent and dangerous work of destroying chemical and biological weapons. We will provide security against those who try to spread chaos or settle scores or threaten the territorial integrity of Iraq. We will seek to protect Iraq's natural resources from sabotage by a dying regime and ensure those resources are used for the benefit of the owners, the Iraqi people. The United States has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq's new government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people. Yet we will ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another. All Iraqis must have a voice in the new government, and all citizens must have their rights protected. Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own. We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before, and the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies. We left constitutions and parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home. There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. The nation of Iraq with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom. The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life, and there are hopeful signs of the desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the freedom gap so their people can fully share in the progress of our times. Leaders in the region speak of a new Arab charter that champions internal reform, greater political participation, economic openness and free trade. And from Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps to political reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life. Human cultures can be vastly different, yet the human heart desires the same good things everywhere on Earth. In our desire to be safe from brutal and bullying oppression, human beings are the same. In our desire to care for our children and give them a better life, we are the same. For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror. Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state. The passing of Saddam Hussein's regime will deprive terrorist networks of a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers. And other regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror will not be tolerated. But without this outside support for terrorism, Palestinians who are working for reform and long for democracy will be in a better position to choose new leaders, true leaders who strive for peace, true leaders who faithfully serve the people. A Palestinian state must be a reformed and peaceful state that abandons forever the use of terror. For its part, the new government of Israel, as the terror threat is removed and security improves, will be expected to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state and to work as quickly as possible toward a final status agreement. As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end. And the Arab states will be expected to meet their responsibilities to oppose terrorism, to support the emergence of a peaceful and democratic Palestine, and state clearly they will live in peace with Israel. The United States and other nations are working on a road map for peace. We are setting out the necessary conditions for progress toward the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. It is the commitment of our government and my personal commitment to implement the road map and to reach that goal. Old patterns of conflict in the Middle East can be broken if all concerned will let go of bitterness and hatred and violence and get on with the serious work of economic development and political reform and reconciliation. America will seize every opportunity in pursuit of peace. And the end of the present regime in Iraq would create such an opportunity. In confronting Iraq, the United States is also showing our commitment to effective international institutions. We are a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. We helped to create the Security Council. We believe in the Security Council so much that we want its words to have meaning. The global threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cannot be confronted by one nation alone. The world needs today and will need tomorrow international bodies with the authority and the will to stop the spread of terror and chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. A threat to all must be answered by all. High-minded pronouncements against proliferation mean little unless the strongest nations are willing to stand behind them and use force if necessary. After all, the United Nations was created, as Winston Churchill said, to "make sure that the force of right will, in the ultimate issue, be protected by the right of force." Another resolution is now before the Security Council. If the council responds to Iraq's defiance with more excuses and delays, if all its authority proves to be empty, the United Nations will be severely weakened as a source of stability and order. If the members rise to this moment, then the council will fulfill its founding purpose. I've listened carefully as people and leaders around the world have made known their desire for peace. All of us want peace. The threat to peace does not come from those who seek to enforce the just demands of the civilized world. The threat to peace comes from those who flout those demands. If we have to act, we will act to restrain the violent and defend the cause of peace, and by acting, we will signal to outlaw regimes that, in this new century, the boundaries of civilized behavior will be respected. Protecting those boundaries carries a cost. If war is forced upon us by Iraq's refusal to disarm, we'll meet an enemy who hides his military forces behind civilians, who has terrible weapons, who is capable of any crime. The dangers are real, as our soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines fully understand. Yet no military has ever been better prepared to meet these challenges. Members of our armed forces also understand why they may be called to fight. They know that retreat before a dictator guarantees even greater sacrifices in the future. They know that America's cause is right and just: The liberty for an oppressed people and security for the American people. And I know something about these men and women who wear a uniform. They will complete every mission they are given with skill and honor and courage. Much is asked of America in this year 2003. The work ahead is demanding. It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in the country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions and war. It will be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East after so many generations of strife. Yet the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us. And Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard. We have met great tests in other times and we will meet the tests of our time. We go forward with confidence because we trust in the power of human freedom to change lives and nations. By the resolve and purpose of America, and of our friends and allies, we will make this an age of progress and liberty. Free people will set the course of history and free people will keep the peace of the world. Thank you all very much. END

Alpha

JINSA Zionist (David Frum) Wrote "Axis of Evil" Mention for President Bush:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/08/jinsa-jewish-zionist-wrote-axis-of-evil-speech.php

klaas17 · Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 10:46 am Post subject: good is much, much is not good

Your endless quotes do not invite to reading.

And a remark, Bush, in my opinion now has manoevred himself into the position that attacking Iraq with most of the world against such an attack is the beginning of the end of the USA, and not attacking also is the beginning of the end of the USA.

War Without End

The global war against terror, news about the illegal invasion of Iraq, the corporate puppet presidents, the war criminal Tony Blair, September 11th 2001, the USS Liberty and New World Order crimes against humanity.

PNAC Group....the List of players - page 4