9/11-PNAC, 9/11-PNAC - SHOULD BE THE #1 TOPIC OF DISCUSSION A WAKE-UP CALL THE ALTERNATIVE AND LIBERAL MEDIA: TO STOP IGNORING 9/11 AND THE PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
9/11, Iraq & PNAC - The Connection is Clear & Undeniable - THE COMMON SENSE CONNECTION: THESE MEN LIED IN ORDER TO START A WAR AND IN THE PROCESS THEY SACRIFICED THE LIVES OF OVER 2000 AMERICAN SOLDIERS. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT THEY DID NOT SACRIFICE 3000 TOTAL STRANGERS ON 9/11/2001 FOR THE SAME PURPOSE?
WALLACE Vs. Bush - Law suit against the current American administration alleging that the Government has exceeded its constitutional authority by implementing a scheme for global dominance called "Project for the New American Century."
Panorama: The War Party - A BBC Broadcast - “Panorama investigates the "neo-conservatives", the small and unelected group of right-wingers, who critics claim have hijacked the White House.”
A Tangled Web of Neocon Lies - The Frauds of War - They've already spun circles around U.S. public opinion, and hope through their relentless disinformation campaigns to join us all to the sticky project they call the New American Century.
Neocons on the Line - Hovering over all this is a more philosophical question: can democracy really be imposed by force, or even outside pressure? And is it such a panacea?
The Warrior Class - Bill Kristol and the National Greatness Crowd would love to have a war
Like Father, Like Son - PNAC and the Bush presidents. - PNAC laid out its " statement of principles" on June 3, 1997. Its 25 signers read like a Who's Who of Bush cronyism, with a few marginal characters thrown in to give the illusion of balance: Elliott Abrams, Bill Bennett, Gary Bower, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalizad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel and Paul Wolfowitz.
Arrogance, or something darker? - If you want to know why 9/11 was allowed to happen you may not have to look any further than the Oval Office. - A little more than a month before the attack, in his Aug. 6 daily intelligence briefing, Bush was "told that morning of the al-Qaida terror network's interest in conducting a strike within the U.S., and that it might involve highjacked airplanes," reports the Wall Street Journal (7/24/03.) - Why didn't he order airlines to be alerted, inform the Federal Aviation Administration of the threat, put the military air commands on a high level of readiness and tell the FBI, CIA and INS to be super vigilant? - He brushed the warning aside - Perhaps it wasn't arrogance that made the PNAC-influenced administration dismiss multiple warnings of a terrorist attack using highjacked airliners. The truth may be far darker. - Here's the chilling kicker: To convince the American people to spend extra billions for defense instead of on Social Security, Medicare, etc., PNAC suggested it would take a "catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." (PNAC's exact words.)
Neocon Coup at the Department d'État - Let others fight over whether the war in Iraq was a neocon vigilante action disrupting diplomacy. The neocons have moved on to a vigilante action to occupy diplomacy.
Is PNAC Working for Sun Myung Moon? - (Could This Be Why They Both Dislike the UN?) - PLUS! How We Now Know That Saddam Didn't Have The Vast WMD Stores That The Bush/PNAC Crowd Said He Did
Founding Father of Neocon Philosophy Leo Strauss and Jefferson's Impending Death - Even the national press has sounded the alarm about the "Straussians." The Bush administration, particularly its foreign policy team, has been and is still heavily influenced by neoconservative "intellectuals" who are themselves under the influence of the teachings of Leo Strauss. These include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Abram Shulsky of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, Richard Perle of the Pentagon advisory board, and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council.
Wisconsin congressman asks Bush to oust defense leaders - A congressman from Wisconsin has asked President Bush to call for the resignations of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, saying they have so mishandled the war in Iraq that they should quit. _ TVNL Comment: These are PNAC members.
Man of the [Jewish] Year - What's not in dispute is that Wolfowitz is the principal author of the doctrine of preemption, which framed the war in Iraq and which, when it comes to it, will underpin US action against other rogue states.
31 Ways to Take on the Neocon Think Tanks: A Progressive Policy and Position Promotion Think Tank Prospectus - The most powerful weapon the right wing has is their policy and position promotion (PPP) think tanks (TTs).
How We Got Into This Imperial Pickle: - A PNAC Primer - Some of the ideological roots of today's Bush Administration power-wielders could be traced back to political philosophers Leo Strauss and Albert Wohlstetter or to GOP rightist Barry Goldwater and his rabid anti-communist followers in the early-1960s. But, for simplicity's sake let's stick closer to our own time.
A Deliberate Debacle - These are tough times for the architects of the "Bush doctrine" of unilateralism and preventive war. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their fellow Project for a New American Century alumni viewed Iraq as a pilot project, one that would validate their views and clear the way for further regime changes. (Hence Mr. Wolfowitz's line about "future efforts.")
The Project for a New American Empire - Who are these guys? And why do they think they can rule the world? - A British magazine called them "the weird men behind George W. Bush's war." Their Project has led to countless conspiracy theories. Their principles are now the governing foreign and military policy of the Bush administration—a plan combining U.S. military forces based around the world with a doctrine of pre-emptive war and the development of new nuclear weapons. - Who are they, the creators of the "Project for the New American Century"? - TVNL Comment: We have said many times that PNAC is our president and that Bush is just their “electable” spokesperson. Would you have voted for Richard Perle?
US right weaves tangled but effective web - While most of the world is still trying to come to terms with the neo-imperial ambitions of the post-September 11 Bush administration, US political analysts, particularly those on the libertarian right and the left, have been trying to map out the various forces behind the administration's hawks the better to understand and counteract them.
Hawks tell Bush how to win war on terror - President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites. - The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington. - TVNL Comment: We have said all along that it is PNAC who is our president and that Bush was just a guy who could get enough votes to get the White House.
America Two Years After 9/11: 25 Things We Now Know - We know that a cabal of ideologically-motivated Bush officials, on the rightwing fringe of the Republican Party, were calling for a military takeover of Iraq as early as 1991. This elite group included Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Woolsey, Bolton, Khalizad and others, all of whom are now located in positions of power in the Pentagon and State Department. - They helped found the Project for The New American Century (PNAC) in 1997; among their recommendations: "pre-emptively" attacking other countries devoid of imminent danger to the U.S., abrogating agreed-upon treaties when they conflict with U.S. goals, making sure no other country (or organization, such as the United Nations) can ever achieve parity with the U.S., installing U.S.-friendly governments to do America's will, using tactical nuclear weapons, and so on. In short, as they put it, the goal is "benevolent global hegemony."
White man's burden - The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical
The US is now in the hands of a group of extremists - Fundamentalism has spawned an ideology of American supremacy - We may have more difficulty in perceiving the absurdity of pursuing supremacy by military means, because we have learned to rely on military power and we particularly feel the need for it when our very existence is threatened. But the most powerful country on earth cannot afford to be consumed by fear.
Neocons: Learning Disabled - Rational people, acting as individuals or as a group, learn from their mistakes. They gather data, they make decisions, and they take actions. Then they assess the feedback from reality and adjust. - An ideologue shares a lot of traits with the insane. His ideology provides him with all the answers to all the questions. When reality throws up facts that don't jibe with the ideology, he ignores reality and sticks with his ideology. - Ideologues are dangerous, whether their ideology is the neoconservative variety, Zionism, communism or Islamic extremism. Their minds all work the same way: We know the answers; don't try to confuse us with facts.
"Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was 'a new Pearl Harbor'. Its published aims have, alarmingly, come true." -- John Pilger, 12 Dec 2002
The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written more than two years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for America to dominate much of humanity and the world's resources, it said, was "some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the "new Pearl Harbor", described as "the opportunity of ages". The extremists who have since exploited 11 September come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and "think-tanks" were established to avenge the American "defeat" in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a "peace dividend" following the cold war. The Project for the New American Century was formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and others that have since merged the ambitions of the Reagan administration with those of the current Bush regime.
One of George W Bush's "thinkers" is Richard Perle. I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan; and when he spoke about "total war", I mistakenly dismissed him as mad. He recently used the term again in describing America's "war on terror". "No stages," he said. "This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
Perle is one of the founders of the Project for the New American Century, the PNAC. Other founders include Dick Cheney, now vice-president, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, I Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, William J Bennett, Reagan's education secretary, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's ambassador to Afghanistan. These are the modern chartists of American terrorism. The PNAC's seminal report, Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a new century, was a blueprint of American aims in all but name. Two years ago it recommended an increase in arms-spending by $48bn so that Washington could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars". This has happened. It said the United States should develop "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons and make "star wars" a national priority. This is happening. It said that, in the event of Bush taking power, Iraq should be a target. And so it is.
As for Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass destruction", these were dismissed, in so many words, as a convenient excuse, which it is. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification," it says, "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." How has this grand strategy been implemented? A series of articles in the Washington Post, co-authored by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and based on long interviews with senior members of the Bush administration, reveals how 11 September was manipulated.
On the morning of 12 September 2001, without any evidence of who the hijackers were, Rumsfeld demanded that the US attack Iraq. According to Woodward, Rumsfeld told a cabinet meeting that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism". Iraq was temporarily spared only because Colin Powell, the secretary of state, persuaded Bush that "public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible". Afghanistan was chosen as the softer option. If Jonathan Steele's estimate in the Guardian is correct, some 20,000 people in Afghanistan paid the price of this debate with their lives.
Time and again, 11 September is described as an "opportunity". In last April's New Yorker, the investigative reporter Nicholas Lemann wrote that Bush's most senior adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told him she had called together senior members of the National Security Council and asked them "to think about 'how do you capitalise on these opportunities'", which she compared with those of "1945 to 1947": the start of the cold war. Since 11 September, America has established bases at the gateways to all the major sources of fossil fuels, especially central Asia. The Unocal oil company is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush has scrapped the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states "if necessary". Under cover of propaganda about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the Bush regime is developing new weapons of mass destruction that undermine international treaties on biological and chemical warfare.
In the Los Angeles Times, the military analyst William Arkin describes a secret army set up by Donald Rumsfeld, similar to those run by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and which Congress outlawed. This "super-intelligence support activity" will bring together the "CIA and military covert action, information warfare, and deception". According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld, the new organisation, known by its Orwellian moniker as the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, or P2OG, will provoke terrorist attacks which would then require "counter-attack" by the United States on countries "harbouring the terrorists".
In other words, innocent people will be killed by the United States. This is reminiscent of Operation Northwoods, the plan put to President Kennedy by his military chiefs for a phoney terrorist campaign - complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans - as justification for an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy rejected it. He was assassinated a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but with resources undreamt of in 1963 and with no global rival to invite caution. You have to keep reminding yourself this is not fantasy: that truly dangerous men, such as Perle and Rumsfeld and Cheney, have power. The thread running through their ruminations is the importance of the media: "the prioritised task of bringing on board journalists of repute to accept our position".
"Our position" is code for lying. Certainly, as a journalist, I have never known official lying to be more pervasive than today. We may laugh at the vacuities in Tony Blair's "Iraq dossier" and Jack Straw's inept lie that Iraq has developed a nuclear bomb (which his minions rushed to "explain"). But the more insidious lies, justifying an unprovoked attack on Iraq and linking it to would-be terrorists who are said to lurk in every Tube station, are routinely channelled as news. They are not news; they are black propaganda.
This corruption makes journalists and broadcasters mere ventriloquists' dummies. An attack on a nation of 22 million suffering people is discussed by liberal commentators as if it were a subject at an academic seminar, at which pieces can be pushed around a map, as the old imperialists used to do.
The issue for these humanitarians is not primarily the brutality of modern imperial domination, but how "bad" Saddam Hussein is. There is no admission that their decision to join the war party further seals the fate of perhaps thousands of innocent Iraqis condemned to wait on America's international death row. Their doublethink will not work. You cannot support murderous piracy in the name of humanitarianism. Moreover, the extremes of American fundamentalism that we now face have been staring at us for too long for those of good heart and sense not to recognise them.
