Subject: Well Written Conspiracy Article from Germany

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Mar 11, 2003 10:22 AM
Message-ID: <110320031022074343%stang@subgenius.com>

((Fwded to me by St. K Huey))

Reader Alun Breward writes: "I found this article on the website of
German news magazine Der Spiegel this week. I thought it was one of the
best pieces of journalism on the Iraq conflict I have read and so I
translated it." Thanks Alun! Here we go.

***

This war came from a think tank

by Jochen Boelsche, spiegel

It was in no way a conspiracy. As far back as 1998, ultra right US
think tanks had developed and published plans for an era of US world
domination, sidelining the UN and attacking Iraq. These people were not
taken seriously. But now they are calling the tune.

German commentators and correspondents have been confused. Washington
has tossed around so many types of reasons for war on Baghdad "that it
could make the rest of the world dizzy", said the South German Times.

And the Nuremburg News reported on public statements last week by
Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer to an inner circle in the US that
war can only be avoided if Saddam not only disarms, but also leaves
office.

Regime change is a condition that is in none of the barely remembered
18 UN resolutions. The Nuremburg News asked in astonishment whether
Fleischer had made the biggest Freudian slip of his career or whether
he spoke with the President's authority.

It's not about Saddam's weapons

So it goes. Across the world critics of President Bush are convinced
that a second Gulf War is actually about replacing Saddam, whether the
dictator is involved with WMD or not. "It's not about his WMD," writes
the German born Israeli peace campaigner, Uri Avnery, "its purely a war
about world domination, in business, politics, defence and culture".

There are real models for this. They were already under development by
far right Think Tanks in the 1990s, organisations in which cold-war
warriors from the inner circle of the secret services, from evangelical
churches, from weapons corporations and oil companies forged shocking
plans for a new world order.

In the plans of these hawks a doctrine of "might is right" would
operate, and the mightiest of course would be the last superpower,
America.

Visions of world power on the Web

To this end the USA would need to use all means - diplomatic, economic
and military, even wars of aggression - to have long term control of
the resources of the planet and the ability to keep any possible rival
weak.

These 1990's schemes of the Think Tanks, from sidelining the UN to a
series of wars to establish dominance - were in no way secret. Nearly
all these scenarios have been published; some are accessible on the
Web.

For a long time these schemes were shrugged off as fantasy produced by
intellectual mavericks - arch-conservative relics of the Reagan era,
the coldest of cold-war warriors, hibernating in backwaters of academia
and lobby groups.

At the White House an internationalist spirit was in the air. There was
talk of partnerships for universal human rights, of multi-lateralism in
relations with allies. Treaties on climate-change, weapons control, on
landmines and international justice were on the agenda.

Saddam's fall was planned in 1998

In this liberal climate there came, nearly unnoticed, a 1997 proposal
of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that forcefully
mapped out "America's global leadership". On 28 Jan 1998 the PNAC
project team wrote to President Clinton demanding a radical change in
dealings with the UN and the end of Saddam.

While it was not clear whether Saddam was developing WMD, he was, they
said, a threat to the US, Israel, the Arab States and "a meaningful
part of the world's oil reserves". They put their case as follows:

"In the short term this means being ready to lead military action,
without regard for diplomacy. In the long term it means disarming
Saddam and his regime. We believe that the US has the right under
existing Security Council resolutions to take the necessary steps,
including war, to secure our vital interests in the Gulf. In no
circumstances should America's politics be crippled by the misguided
insistence of the Security Council on unanimity." (clintonletter)

Blueprint for an offensive

This letter might have remained yellowing in the White House archives
if it did not read like a blue-print for a long-desired war, and still
might have been forgotten if ten PNAC members had not signed it. These
signatories are today all part of the Bush Administration. They are
Dick Cheney - Vice President, Lewis Libby - Cheney's Chief of Staff,
Donald Rumsfeld - Defence Minister, Paul Wolfowitz - Rumsfeld's deputy,
Peter Rodman - in charge of 'Matters of Global Security', John Bolton -
State Secretary for Arms Control, Richard Armitage - Deputy Foreign
Minister, Richard Perle - former Deputy Defence Minister under Reagan,
now head of the Defense Policy Board, William Kristol - head of the
PNAC and adviser to Bush, known as the brains of the President, Zalmay
Khalilzad - fresh from being special ambassador and kingmaker in
Afghanistan, now Bush's special ambassador to the Iraqi opposition.

But even before that - over ten years ago - two hardliners from this
group had developed a defence proposal that created a global scandal
when it was leaked to the US press. The suggestion that was revealed in
1992 in The New York Times was developed by two men who today are
Cabinet members - Wolfowitz and Libby. It essentially argued that the
doctrine of deterrence used in the Cold War should be replaced by a new
global strategy.

Its goal was the enduring preservation of the superpower status of the
US - over Europe, Russia and China. Various means were proposed to
deter potential rivals from questioning America's leadership or playing
a larger regional or global role. The paper caused major concerns in
the capitals of Europe and Asia.

But the critical thing, according to the Wolfowitz-Libby paper, was
complete American dominance of Eurasia. Any nation there that
threatened the USA by acquiring WMD should face pre-emptive attack,
they said. Traditional alliances should be replaced by ad-hoc
coalitions.

This 1992 masterplan then formed the basis of a PNAC paper that was
concluded in September 2000, just months before the start of the Bush
Administration.

That September 2000 paper (Rebuilding America's Defences) was developed
by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Libby, and is devoted to matters of
"maintaining US pre-eminence, thwarting rival powers and shaping the
global security system according to US interests". (RAD)

The cavalry on the new frontier

Amongst other things, this paper said, the USA must re-arm and build a
missile shield in order to put itself in a position to fight numerous
wars simultaneously and chart its own course. Whatever happened, the
Gulf would have to be in US control:

"The US has sought for years to play an ongoing role in the security
architecture of the Gulf. The unresolved conflict with Iraq provides a
clear basis for our presence, but quite independent of the issue of the
Iraqi regime, a substantial US presence in the Gulf is needed."

The paper describes these US forces stationed overseas in the raw
language of the Wild West, calling them "the Cavalry on the New
American Frontier". Even peace efforts, the paper continues, should
have the stamp of the USA rather than the UN.

Gun-at-the-head diplomacy

Scarcely had President Bush (jnr) won his controversial election
victory and replaced Clinton than he brought the hardliners from the
PNAC into his administration. The old campaigner Richard Perle (who
once told the Hamburg Times about 'gun-at-the-head diplomacy') found
himself in the key role at the Defense Policy Board. This board
operates in close cooperation with Pentagon boss Rumsfeld.

At a breath-taking pace the new power-bloc began implementing the PNAC
strategy. Bush ditched international treaty after international treaty,
shunned the UN and began treating allies as inferiors. After the
attacks of 11 September, as fear ruled the US and anthrax letters
circulated, the Bush cabinet clearly took the view that the time was
ripe to dust off the PNAC plans for Iraq.

Just six days after 11 September, Bush signed an order to prepare for
war against the terror network and the Taliban. Another order went to
the military, that was secret initially, instructing them to develop
scenarios for a war in Iraq.

A son of a bitch, but our son of a bitch

Of course the claims of Iraqi control of the 11 September hijackers
never were proven, just like the assumption that Saddam was involved
with the anthrax letters (they proved to be from sources in the US
Military). But regardless, Richard Perle claimed in a TV interview that
"there can be no victory in the war on terror if Saddam remains in
power".

The dictator, demanded Perle, must be deposed by the US as a matter of
priority "because he symbolises contempt for all Western values". But
Saddam had always been that way, even when he gained power in Iraq with
US backing.

At that time a Secret Service officer from the US embassy in Baghdad
reported to CIA Headquarters: "I know Saddam is a son of a bitch, but
he is our son of a bitch". And after the US had supported the dictator
in his war with Iran, the retired CIA Director Robert Gates says he had
no illusions about Saddam. The dictator, says Gates "was never a
reformer, never a democrat, just a common criminal".

But the PNAC paper does not make clear why Washington now wants to
declare war, even without UN support, on its erstwhile partner.

A shining example of freedom

There is a lot of evidence that Washington wants to remove the Iraqi
regime in order to bring the whole Middle East more fully under its
economic sphere of influence. Bush puts it somewhat differently - after
a liberation that is necessitated by breaches of international law,
Iraq "will serve as a dramatic and shining exampled of freedom to other
nations of the region".

Experts like Udo Steinbach, Director of the German-Orient Institute in
Hamburg, have doubts about Bush's bona fides. Steinbach describes the
President's announcement last week of a drive to democratise Iraq as "a
calculated distortion aimed at justifying war".

There is nothing currently to indicate that Bush truly is pursuing
democratisation in the region.

"Particularly in Iraq," says Steinbach, "I cannot convince myself that
after the fall of Saddam something democratic could take shape."

Control the flow of oil, control your rivals

This so called pre-emptive war that the PNAC ideologues have longed for
against Iraq also serves, in the judgement of Uri Avnery, to take the
battle to Europe and Japan. It brings US dominance of Eurasia closer.

Avnery notes:

"American occupation of Iraq would secure US control not only of the
extensive oil reserves of Iraq, but also the oil of the Caspian Sea and
the Gulf States. With control of the supply of oil the US can stall the
economies of Germany, France and Japan at will, just by manipulating
the oil price. A lower price would damage Russia, a higher one would
shaft Germany and Japan. That's why preventing this war is essential to
Europe's interests, apart from Europeans' deep desire for peace."

"Washington has never been shy about its desire to tame Europe," argues
Avnery. In order to implement his plans for world dominance, says
Avnery, "Bush is prepared to spill immense quantities of blood, so long
as it's not American blood".

The world will toe the American line

The arrogance of the hawks in the US administration, and their plan to
have the world toe their line while they decide on war or peace, shocks
experts like the international law expert Hartmut Schiedermair from
Cologne. The American "crusading zeal" that can make such statements he
says is "highly disturbing".

Similarly Harald Mueller - a leading peace researcher - has long
criticised the German Government for "assiduously overlooking and
tacitly endorsing" the dramatic shift in US foreign policy of 2001. He
says the agenda of the Bush administration is unmistakable:

"America will do as it pleases. It will obey international law if it
suits, and break that law or ignore it if necessary ... The USA wants
total freedom for itself, to be the aristocrat of world politics."

Infatuated with war

Even senior politicians in countries backing a second Gulf War are
appalled by the radicals in the White House.

Beginning last year, responding to the PNAC study, long-serving Labour
MP Tam Dalyell raged against it in the House of Commons:

"This is rubbish from right wing think tanks where bird-brained
war-mongers huddle together - people who have never experienced the
horror of war, but are infatuated with the idea of it."

Even his own leader got a broad-side: "I am appalled that a Labour PM
would hop into bed with such a troop of moral pygmies."

Across the Atlantic in mid February, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd (at
86 years of age the so-called "Father of the Senate") spoke out. The
longest serving member of that Chamber warned the pre-emptive war that
the Right were advocating was a "distortion of long-standing concepts
of the right of self-defence" and "a blow against international law".
Bush's politics, he said "could well be a turning point in world
history" and "lay the foundation for anti-Americanism" across much of
the world. (Byrd's speech is at A lonely voice in a US Senate silent on
war.)

Holding the rest of the world in contempt

One person who is absolutely unequivocal about the problem of
anti-Americanism is former President Jimmy Carter. He judges the PNAC
agenda in the same way. At first, argues Carter, Bush responded to the
challenge of September 11 in an effective and intelligent way, "but in
the meantime a group of conservatives worked to get approval for their
long held ambitions under the mantle of 'the war on terror'".

The restrictions on civil rights in the US and at Guantanamo,
cancellation of international accords, "contempt for the rest of the
world", and finally an attack on Iraq "although there is no threat to
the US from Baghdad" - all these things will have devastating
consequences, according to Carter.

"This entire unilateralism", warns the ex-President, "will increasingly
isolate the US from those nations that we need in order to do battle
with terrorism".

The Sydney Morning Herald.

--
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Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Well Written Conspiracy Article from Germany
From: "Alliekatt" <alleykatzen@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Mar 11, 2003 11:41 PM
Message-ID: <UTyba.34462$gi1.25996@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>

Wouldn't it be funny if Saddam was actually an oil puppet of the US, right,
and he and his cronies agreed to be paid so many billions to have his ass
ceremonially kicked just to keep the oil flowing and the other ragheads
scared enough to cooperate, right, and the Bush guy who wins by a rigged
election because Al Gore wasn't supposed to, is all like, "Step down
Saddam!" and Saddam is like, "NO", wink wink nudge nudge, I'll hide in my
bunker now while you bomb us out and where's my paycheck, and THEN Europe
and all those Burgermeisters and frogs and leprechauns who don't know shit
about the way things really are with us vs. the ragheads, and don't give a
shit because they eat organic food and walk everywhere if they don't drive
cars that run on water and slack off six days a week getting drunk, and get
their oil from Norway, and can't stand us fat loud motherfuckers, are all
like, HEY YOU, YANKEE, won't you SHUT UP for once and gee, thanks for the
Marshall Plan but you've got a big fucking head now and communism is LONG
over, you don't protect us from shit and we don't owe you shit, and by the
way, if you try to bully the world congress to get a license to use your
gazillion dollar military to bomb the fuck out of some tiny shack full of
terrified people who are a bunch of deluded puppets just like you, you know
what, fuck you, take your malls and SUVs and Hollywood and shit and shove it
up your ass, take your bunch of paranoid government agencies pissing on our
ground for their little national security goals, and get the fuck OUT and go
play your FUCKING banjo back in Texas and keep your DAMN shotguns back on
your ranch for your own violent sexual thrills, cowboy. Go eat a hormone
burger and pass me the Evian and the cigarettes.

alliekatt

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Original file name: Well Written Conspiracy Article - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:45