The "War on Terror "

George Bush's (oil) war to last our lifetimes - see Let's stop this War!

 

Let's take bets on when the US attack on Iraq will commence!

22 Jan 2003 - U.S.-led attack on Iraq planned for February: Russian media, CBC News

29 October 2002 - Doonesbury


I wonder when the Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for committing acts of "agressive war" will follow...

31 January 2003 - A War Crime or an Act of War?, By Stephen C. Pelletiere, New York Times


Opposition to the various Bush wars, commenced under the "War on Terror" label:

15 February 2003 - The World Says No to War!, Noon, New York, New York
10 December 2002
- Hollywood performers oppose war with Iraq, AP, My AOL
10 December 2002 - Groups Gather to Protest Iraq War, AP, My AOL


Shouldn't any "War on Terror" start at home?:

The US government's own School of the Americas (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHISC) has been training terrorists for years.

28 October 2002 - 'Terrorist training, American style', by Heather Wokusch, Smirking Chimp

Located in Fort Benning, Georgia, WHISC has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in the most heinous of counter-insurgency warfare techniques, and its graduates have gone on to comprise a bloody who's who of coups, chaos and destruction.

...Established by the US military in Panama in 1946, WHISC (or School of the Americas/SOA, as it was previously known) was booted out and forced to relocate stateside in 1984. Its graduates have repeatedly been implicated in cases of torture, rape, massacre and assassination, their victims frequently social rights activists and other civilians...

...Bowing to public pressure back home, in 1996 the Pentagon released several of the school's training manuals, detailing a curriculum advocating the use of blackmail, psychological warfare, torture and execution. By 2000, the appalling degree of human rights abuses committed by SOA graduates prompted several in the House of Representatives to try closing the school, but just before the key congressional vote, SOA personnel presented the Department of Defense with a compromise: "Some of your bosses have told us that they can't support anything with the name 'School of the Americas' on it. Our proposal addresses this concern. It changes the name."

February-March 1996 - A STATE OF TERROR: How many 'terrorist' groups has your government established, sponsored or networked lately?, Nexus Magazine, Volume 3, #2


Is the current buzzword "War on Terror" really just another war for oil with the innocents of the world the ones to suffer?
It's obviously not about the UN Resolutions...

Where the oil is

Iraq

Israel

UN Resolutions violated, ignored: 16 UN Resolutions violated, ignored: 68
Countries attacked, invaded, violated: Iran, Kuwait Countries attacked, invaded, violated: Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia
Countries occupied for years: NONE Countries occupied for years: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria
Countries currently occupying: NONE Countries currently occupying: Syria
Territory illegally annexed: NONE Territory illegally annexed: Golan Heights, Jerusalem, Palestinian Territories
Wars started: 1980, 1990 Wars started: 1956, 1967, 1982
Possesses weapons of mass destruction: To be determined Possesses weapons of mass destruction: Yes
Possesses nuclear weapons: No Possesses nuclear weapons: Yes
Most notable atrocity against civilians: 5,000 Kurdish civilians were killed in the village of Halabja, March 1988 Most notable atrocity against civilians: 17,500 Lebanese civilians killed in 1982 invasion of Lebanon
Currently under a regime of UN sanctions: Yes Currently under a regime of UN sanctions: No

How many of the wars in the last 100 years were fought over resources? see Resource Wars

Here are some starter hints:

There is oil near the Phillipines that the Japanese sought to grab in the early 40's and were blockaded by US Navy vessels (yes, some time shortly before Pearl Harbor).

There is oil off the coast of Viet Nam...hmm, not many people know that one.
There is oil in Somalia.
A proposed route for an oil pipeline runs through Kosovo.

A proposed pipeline runs through Afganistan and to the sea at Karachi, Pakistan.

Getting the picture yet?
5 November 2002 - Gore Vidal Says Oil Thirst Behind Bush Policies, by Roberto Bonzio, Yahoo News
3 November 2002
- US Carve-Up Of Vast Oil Riches Begins!; Bush Plans To Ditch Industry Rivals And Force End Of OPEC, by Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam, The Observer
8 August 2002 - Is the Empire about oil?, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, From the Wilderness

 

maps of the war fronts

related topics:

Commentary below - remember, we warned you that what you read here might be controversial, but it is patriotic to be critical of your government, you know?

8 November 2002 - Robert Fisk: Bush fights for another clean shot in his war, the Independent

"A clean shot" was The Washington Post's revolting description of the murder of the al-Qa'ida leaders in Yemen by a US "Predator" unmanned aircraft. With grovelling approval, the US press used Israel's own mendacious description of such murders as a "targeted killing" – and shame on the BBC for parroting the same words on Wednesday. How about a little journalistic freedom here? Like asking why this important al-Qa'ida leader could not have been arrested. Or tried before an open court. Or, at the least, taken to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation.

..."Targeted killing" – courtesy of the Bush administration – is now what the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon can call "legitimate warfare". And Vladimir Putin, too. Now the Russians – I kid thee not, as Captain Queeg said in the Caine Mutiny – are talking about "targeted killing" in their renewed war on Chechnya. After the disastrous "rescue" of the Moscow theatre hostages by the so-called "elite" Russian Alpha Special forces (beware, oh reader, any rescue by "elite" forces, should you be taken hostage), Putin is supported by Bush and Tony Blair in his renewed onslaught against the broken Muslim people of Chechnya.

I'm a cynical critic of the US media, but last month Newsweek ran a brave and brilliant and terrifying report on the Chechen war. In a deeply moving account of Russian cruelty in Chechnya, it recounted a Russian army raid on an unprotected Muslim village. Russian soldiers broke into a civilian home and shot all inside. One of the victims was a Chechen girl. As she lay dying of her wounds, a Russian soldier began to rape her. "Hurry up Kolya," his friend shouted, "while she's still warm."

...Let me quote that very brave Israeli, Mordechai Vanunu, the man who tried to warn the West of Israel's massive nuclear war technology, imprisoned for 12 years of solitary confinement – and betrayed, so it appears, by one Robert Maxwell. In a poem he wrote in confinement, Vanunu said: "I am the clerk, the technician, the mechanic, the driver. They said, Do this, do that, don't look left or right, don't read the text. Don't look at the whole machine. You are only responsible for this one bolt, this one rubber stamp."

Kolya would have understood that. So would the US Air Force officer "flying" the drone which murdered the al-Qa'ida men in Yemen. So would the Israeli pilot who bombed an apartment block in Gaza, killing nine small children as well as well as his Hamas target, an "operation" – that was the description, for God's sake – which Ariel Sharon described as "a great success".

3 October 2002 - Operation Endless Deployment, by William D. Hartung, Frida Berrigan & Michelle Ciarrocc, The Nation

The Pentagon is determined to maintain access to the rapidly growing network of military facilities it has built or refurbished in the Caucasus, South Asia and the Persian Gulf for decades to come, long after George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein have passed from the global stage.

Since September 2001 US forces have built, upgraded or expanded military facilities in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan; authorized extended training missions or open-ended troop deployments in Djibouti, the Philippines and the former Soviet republic of Georgia; negotiated access to airfields in Kazakhstan; and engaged in major military exercises, involving thousands of US personnel, in Jordan, Kuwait and India. Thousands of tons of military equipment have been added to stockpiles already pre-positioned in Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf states, including Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. And discussions are still under way with Yemen about increasing American access to facilities there and establishing an intelligence-gathering installation aimed at monitoring activities in Sudan and Somalia. [In all of this, keep in mind the reason terrorists attack Americans - because the US government is messing around in their countries!]

17 October 2002 - I'm an American tired of American lies, by Woody Harrelson, The Guardian

quoting an Iraqi: "If it were up to the people, there would be peace. It's the governments that create war."

...I am a father, and no amount of propaganda can convince me that half a million dead children is acceptable "collateral damage"

...This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White House (you call them "hawks", but I would never disparage such a fine bird) have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist.

To the men in Washington, the world is just a giant Monopoly board. Oddly enough, Americans generally know how the government works. The politicians do everything they can for the people - the people who put them in power...

13 October 2002 - The hijacking of America; But now many conservatives are speaking up against U.S. foreign policy, by Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun

The United States Congress has spoken. Not with a roar, but with a whimper, handing President George W. Bush a blank cheque to go to war against Iraq because of the "imminent threat" it supposedly poses to America. One is reminded of the revolting spectacle of Roman senators groveling at the feet of emperor Tiberius.

The notion of Iraq, a demolished nation of 22.3 million posing an "imminent threat" to the United States, a nation of 281 million, is ludicrous. In fact, anti-Saddam Kurds and southern Shia Muslims comprise 17.7 million, or 79%, of Iraq's population, leaving only 4.6 million Sunnis who more or less support the regime. That's about the population of Hong Kong.

But a steady drumbeat of bellicose propaganda, pressure from powerful special interests thirsting to destroy Iraq, and election year politics have combined to stampede Congress and many Americans into believing this grotesque, Orwellian fiction.

7 October 2002 - Consequences Of War, by Charley Reese, Orlando Sentinel

OUR problems will begin after King George the Younger's war against Iraq is concluded. Like all wars, those who profit from it won't die or suffer in it, and those who die or suffer in it won't profit from it.

The United States will win the war. The same country, Iraq, that is presented to the American people as a mortal peril and threat to the United States -- and even the world -- is in reality a Third World country with nothing but obsolete Soviet weapons and a wrecked economy. No matter how bravely the Iraqis fight, they won't be able to win against a superpower and its fifth-rate sidekick, the United Kingdom.

And there we will be, in the ruins of Baghdad, responsible for 22 million souls divided into factions that hate each other, are hated by their neighbors and that all hate us...

Next to King George, the single most enthusiastic and delighted person backing a war against Iraq is Osama bin Laden. He wants a war of Islam against the West, and George Bush, who is not a subtle or sophisticated thinker, is strutting straight into his trap. Rather than making the Middle East safe for oil companies and Israel, as he imagines, Bush will make the world unsafe for Americans.

To paraphrase one of his own macho sayings, he will have started something. Others will finish it.

7 October 2002 - The Iraq question nobody's asking; No one in the Bush administration is talking about how many of our soldiers will be sent home in body bags, by Arianna Huffington, Salon.com

Sitting on a desk somewhere in the Pentagon is a computer printout listing projected American casualties for a range of Iraq invasion scenarios. Unfortunately, these vital figures are the only numbers that haven't been part of the war debate.

We've heard all kinds of estimates about how much the war is going to cost -- including Ari Fleischer's ultramacho Bullet to Saddam's Head discount special -- how many troops will be deployed, how much the price of oil may go up, and the over-under on how long our forces will have to remain in Iraq. We've been given head counts of Iraq's fractious Kurds and Shiites, reference numbers for security council resolutions defied, and been frequently reminded that Saddam has remained in power for 34 years, 11 of them since the last time we tried to send him and his mustache packing.

But no one in the Bush administration is talking about how many of our soldiers will be sent home in body bags. And not a single reporter has stood up at a press conference -- or at one of the president's countless fundraising appearances -- and asked, "Mr. President, how many young Americans are going to die?"

17 August 2002 - Why I oppose an attack on Iraq, by Gerald Kaufman, The Spectator - Former shadow foreign secretary Gerald Kaufman reveals his deep suspicion of President Bush, and warns Tony Blair that war would mean a widespread Labour revolt

When George W. Bush decided, with Britain’s support, last year to take military action against the Taleban and al-Qa’eda, once again painstaking efforts, led principally by Tony Blair, fashioned an international coalition to support that action. There is no possibility whatever of building such a coalition against Saddam today. Any war against Saddam, launched by Bush and supported by Tony Blair, would have the overt support of precisely one other country: Israel. Israel today, in its repression of the Palestinians, has the full support of precisely one other country: the United States.

If the United States were to attack Iraq, it would not only be Arab and Muslim countries that would point to the intellectual, diplomatic and moral incompatibility of an American invasion of Iraq, allegedly for violating United Nations Security Council resolutions, with the United States tolerating, and its defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, actively supporting Israeli violation of UN resolutions forbidding the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

22 September 2002 - The Iraq debate gets curiouser and curiouser, by Molly Ivins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Don't you just hate it when the bad guys agree to do what we want them to? If that's not a good reason to go in and take out Saddam, name one.

But our Fearless Leader, not one to be deterred from war merely by getting what he wants, promptly moved the goalposts and issued a new list of demands that Iraq must meet, including paying reparations to Kuwait.

If you step back and look at this debate, it just gets stranger and stranger. For one thing, all the evidence is that the administration has already made up its mind and we're going into Iraq this winter. President Bush went to the United Nations and demanded that it back him; he's going to Congress to demand that it back him; and there it is. This is not a debate -- it's Bush in his "You're either with us or against us" mode. It is not a discussion of whether invading Iraq is either necessary or wise.

...The old problem, of course -- the root of the resentment -- is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. We are held to be just as responsible as they are by the Arab world. The smart way to go after Saddam is to wait at least until an Arab-Israeli settlement is reached, and that is a do-able deal.

Instead, we've let Ariel Sharon inflame the situation. More settlements on the West Bank -- now there's a genius move. (Naturally, equal credit to the suicide bombers.)

...The most unpleasant and unhelpful aspect of this "debate" is the implication that anyone who expresses serious doubts about this venture is unpatriotic -- and it often comes from the same people who spent eight years eaten alive with Clinton hatred. Being patriotic doesn't mean agreeing with the government. The most fundamental American right is to not agree with the government and to raise Cain about it.

15 September 2002 - Robert Fisk: America's case for war is built on blindness, hypocrisy and lies; George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are wilfully ignoring the realities of the Middle East. The result can only be catastrophic, The Independent

But the real lie in the President's speech – that which has dominated American political discourse since the crimes against humanity on 11 September last year – was the virtual absence of any attempt to explain the real reasons why the United States has found itself under attack.

In his mendacious article in this newspaper last week, President Bush's Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, also attempted to mask this reality. The 11 September assault, he announced, was an attack on people "who believe in freedom, who practise tolerance and who defend the inalienable rights of man". He made, as usual, absolutely no reference to the Middle East, to America's woeful, biased policies in that region, to its ruthless support for Arab dictators who do its bidding – for Saddam Hussein, for example, at a time when the head of Iraqi nuclear research was undergoing his Calvary – nor to America's military presence in the holiest of Muslim lands, nor to its unconditional support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza.

Oddly, a very faint ghost of this reality did creep into the start of the President's UN address last week. It was contained in two sentences whose importance was totally ignored by the American press – and whose true meaning might have been lost on Mr Bush himself, given that he did not write his speech – but it was revealing nonetheless. "Our common security," he said, "is challenged by regional conflicts – ethnic and religious strife that is ancient but not inevitable. In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides." Then he repeated his old line about the need for "an independent and democratic Palestine".

This was perhaps as close as we've got, so far, to an official admission that this whole terrible crisis is about the Middle East. If this is a simple war for civilisation against "evil" – the line that Mr Bush was so cruelly peddling again to the survivors of 11 September and the victims' relatives last week – ...

13 September 2002 - WHY THIS WAR? Two reasons: Oil and Israel (not necessarily in that order), Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com

This war is a fraud, and a dangerous one. For it comes at a time when we do face a threat – the possibility of another 9/11. The President was forced to acknowledge this in his UN speech – after all, it was the first anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in our history – but with a twist:

"In the attacks on America a year ago, we saw the destructive intentions of our enemies. This threat hides within many nations, including my own. In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale."

Say what? This tortured attempt to link Al Qaeda to an "outlaw regime," i.e. Iraq, is proffered with proof, or irony. For the terrorists didn't need "technologies" to ram two airliners into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon – they only had to turn our own technology against us. Armed just with box-cutter and fanatic boldness, it was Al Qaeda, and not Saddam, that killed some 3,000 New Yorkers.

NO WAY OUT, Michael C. Ruppert, From The Wilderness

Almost a year after Sept. 11 where are we? In the last year the Bush Administration and the financial, economic and oil interests which it serves, have proved their continued ability to move forward into totalitarianism and naked aggression faster than any forces of either domestic or international opposition could organize -- either behind them or in front of them. Optimistic and valiant, but inexperienced efforts to fight the juggernaut have started, swirled, eddied and drifted as the Blitzkrieg war that "will not end in our lifetimes" has not even so much as looked sideways. Overwhelming evidence of the regime's crimes in a dozen arenas has been brought to the surface, and yet each new revelation only spurs the Empire to accelerate its long-conceived plans rather than slow down.

17 August 2002 - Be very afraid - Bush Productions is preparing to go into action They are setting up the Arab world., by Robert Fiske, We are being prepared for an epic supported by Hollywood and a plot of lies, The Independent,

From John Wayne's The Green Berets, war films have lied to us about life and death. After the crimes against humanity in New York and Washington last September, I suppose it was inevitable that the Pentagon and the CIA would call on Hollywood for ideas – yes, the movie boys actually did go to Washington to do a little synergy with the local princes of darkness. But when Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld turned up together for the premier of Black Hawk Dawn, I began to get worried.

...It's not difficult to see what's going on. It's not just al-Qa'ida who are the "enemy". It's Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia. Bush Productions are setting up the Arab world. We are being prepared for a wide-screen epic, a spectacle supported by Hollywood fiction and a plot of lies. Alas, my dad is no longer with us to remind them all that cinema does not imitate reality, that war films lie about life and death.

15 August 2002 - How to destroy America in one easy lesson, by Harry Browne, World Net Daily,

President Bush now seems hell-bent on a plan that could easily lead to a nuclear strike against America – a strike that could cause a disaster many times worse than the World Trade Center attack.

Over and over Mr. Bush has said he'll do whatever is necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq. ("I've made up my mind that Saddam needs to go.") Until recently, that meant an invasion of Iraq – with the only question being when, not if.

Lately, as more and more people have spoken out against such an invasion, he's said he's considering several possibilities. But don't be surprised when some "incident" provides an excuse to launch a full-scale strike against Iraq. American leaders have always found ways to provoke incidents – from Fort Sumter to the Gulf of Tonkin – that draw America into wars.

10 August 2002 - What Really Happened.com

We are told that Iraq may have biological weapons.
The United States DOES have biological weapons.
We are told that Iraq may have nuclear weapons.
The United States DOES have nuclear weapons and is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on civilian populations.
Iraq has not invaded the US.
The US has invaded Iraq.
Iraq has not committed air piracy over the US.
The US has committed air piracy over Iraq.
And still the US goes to war against Iraq, with every indication that, once started, this war will not end with Iraq. What madness is this?

It is time to face an unpleasant truth. Despite public protests to the contrary, everyone in the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Branch WANTS this war, wants to send YOUR children to die in a grab for control of the Mideast and Central Asian oil, because they know that the real agenda for the war is to reverse the balance of trade problem and hold off bankruptcy and collapse for a few more years.

Without this war the US Government will collapse of the accumulated reckless fiscal decisions of the past 90 years. Without this war the members of the permanent ruling class will be out of a job and facing a new government eager to expose and punish the crimes of the previous one, from the murder of Vincent Foster and Iran-Contra drug running, to the lies told to the public about TWA 800, Pearl Harbor, and 9-11.

If you are sitting on your ass, doing nothing, hoping that "someone" in government will stop this madness then you are a fool because the government sees its own survival in this war and your childrens' lives as small price to pay indeed to continue the "American way of life." If you want this war stopped, YOU will have to stop it. There is nobody else BUT you who can stop it. And if you do not, think how you will feel, having had the chance and failing to take it, when the body bag arrives back home. Who but yourself will you blame? Who but yourself will the survivors of the war blame?

9 August 2002 - US Seeks to Achieve Perpetual Motion With Its War Machine, Shadnaster Chronicles

...And with all this hate, violence, and suffering, we, as the most powerful nation in the world, pursue the destruction of an entity called 'terror'; we search without rest for a man we're not sure is even alive; and we seek to start a war with a country that we just left in shambles little more than a decade ago. . .a country who has lost more than 1 million people, half of which were children younger than 5, to sanctions we imposed.

It makes me sick to think that the leaders of my country, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, are using my money to carry out, or fund, some of the most atrocious acts of violence and suppression in recent history.

It's strange that something that was written over two centuries ago can still be so applicable, possibly even more so today, than ever before:

"What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose."

Thomas Jefferson was a wise man. It's too bad we only seem to see his wisdom as little more than literature. We obviously haven't come as far as we think.

article reference missing, sorry

We note the irony in a recent statement made by the new Afghan Ambassador to Washington, Ishaq Shahryar, who was the subject of a July 7, 2002 L.A. Times story which said, "Already the U.S. Geological Survey is mapping out Afghanistan's extensive natural resources and so many businessmen are pouring into Kabul it is reminiscent of the California Gold Rush, Shahryar said."

I am sure that one benefit of the Balkan and Afghan wars is the establishment of a military presence curtaining Russia.

However, this does not detract from the importance of oil. In fact, should we ever reach a time when the major powers are starved of energy, then such a military curtain would be strategically essential to prevent either Russia or China from making a grab for the Middle East.

Yet there are other strategic targets that are not fully explained by the containment alone hypothesis. Why the U.S. military presence in the Philippines? Why the strong interest in Indonesia and Timor? And why the renewed interest in Somalia and Yemen? Opponents can state that the Philippines and Indonesia/Timor are necessary to contain China. But it just so happens that the Philippines dominates the oil shipping lanes from the Middle East to the U.S., and Indonesia/Timor is suspected to contain reserves of oil and natural gas.

And then there is Somalia. What strategic goal towards containment do Somalia and Yemen hold? None, yet these countries do control both sides of the Gulf of Aden and the mouth of the Red Sea, an important shipping channel for oil.

Afganistan was not invaded because of September 11th, Ben Acheson, AIG, New World Order home page

(THE INVASION WAS PLANNED YEARS AGO - FOR OIL):

Quotes from a document written in 1998 & available on Official US Website:

"CentGas can not begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan Government is in place." (So the only solution is a government placed in power by the US)

"If it wasn't for the courage and the bravery of the people of Afghanistan, we would still be in the middle of a cold war, spending $100 billion a year more trying to defend ourselves from the Russians. It was their strength and courage that broke the will of the Kremlin leaders. They decided that they could not stand up to this kind of resistance among the people of the world. " (Meaning that the CIA taught these people to use terrorist techniques, 'for use against Russia')

FACE THE AWFUL TRUTH! Do you think this 1998 document pointing out the need for the installation of a new government in Afghanistan is co-incidence?

Do you really believe, after reading that OFFICIAL document on an OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT website that the war on terror has nothing to do with the oil that Bush, his family & his friends make so much money from?

Face facts: Sept 11 was at the very least financially convenient for these people, as this article shows. They managed both to catch Osama bin Laden AND get their oil*...

*Oh, but they never DID get Osama bin Laden, did they: Just the oil.

Now Afghanistan is about to be used for attacks on Iraq, Iran & the Palestinian authority. These attacks will yield terrible terrorism on American soil, using weapons of mass-destruction. And Bush knows it.

7 August 2002 - Open Letter to America from a Canadian, by W.R. McDougall, Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel

Dear America,

...Few among you are the least bit concerned that no real investigation of 911 has taken place, that no serious investigation of the anthrax attacks is moving forward, that no authentic investigation of Enron, or the murder of one of its top executives, is underway.

How many of you give the slightest damn about the totalitarian measures your government is taking to keep its secret meetings, grubby files and treasonous activities from your eyes?....

When did you stop caring, America? Was it after your own FBI and intelligence agencies plotted the murder of President John F. Kennedy? Or is this just the raving lunacy of the conspiracy nut? What does your gut tell you, America? Is something a little amiss here?

Woody Harrelson, The Mirror (UK), "The war against terrorism is terrorism. The whole thing is just bullsh*t."
Voice of the Mirror, WOODY TAKES ON THE WARMONGERS

The Mirror is not anti-American. But we are increasingly disturbed by the conduct of George Bush as he marauds around the world, settling old family scores and blowing things up. ... Disasters such as Vietnam happened because governments were allowed to proceed with them by lapdog media and weak opposition voices.

The War fronts:

Washington

Coalition Casualties in the US War on "Terrorism"; Afganistan: The Real Numbers, Jihad Unspun

What this report clearly shows is the censorship of the American media and the reports issued by the Pentagon. Rena Golden, the executive vice-president and general manager of CNN International said at a Newsworld conference is Asia that US news organizations “censored” their coverage of the US campaign in Afghanistan in order to be in step with public opinion in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks was shaped by the level of public support that existed for US action.


19 August 2002 - Inside The Secret War Council, Time.com

...it was alarming when one secret agency's work spilled into the open recently, only to be dismissed by almost everyone involved. Meeting last month in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's private conference room, a group called the Defense Policy Board heard an outside expert, armed only with a computerized PowerPoint briefing, denounce the Saudis...

...This is the kind of outside-the-Pentagon-box thinking that routinely takes place inside the Defense Policy Board, the Secretary's private think tank in a building where helmets often trump thinking caps. Chaired by Richard Perle — a Reagan Pentagon official whose hard-line views won him the title "Prince of Darkness"--the board gives its 31 unpaid members something every Washington player wants: unrivaled access without accountability. Perle uses his post as a springboard for his unilateralist, attack-Iraq views to try to whip the Bush Administration into action. But despite its name, the board does not make policy. As the Saudi episode shows, it can do something far scarier: give a false impression of it.

Rumsfeld has given some of the Republican right's most outspoken (and forsaken) hawks a place to nest. Among them: former Vice President Dan Quayle, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-CIA and Pentagon boss James Schlesinger. True, there are also centrist Republican members, like Henry Kissinger...former CIA chief James Woolsey,...In effect, the board has become Perle's podium...now his position there lends weight to his public pronouncements... But board members, serving at Rumsfeld's pleasure, are like a choir preaching to the pastor. The board "is just another p.r. shop for Rumsfeld,"..."It gives his ideas more currency."

How To Silence the War Drums on the Potomac!, by Ron Holland, the Dixie Daily News
America's War on Terrorism is about oil!, RememberJohn.com

In August 2001, FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill resigned from his post over George W. Bush's policy on terrorism and Osama bin Laden. Specifically, O'Neill's department was told to "back off" their bin Laden and Al Queda investigations while the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban. O'Neill became the security chief of the World Trade Center - where he died during the events of 9/11.

 

the public becomes wise to the plans of the Washington war-makers

11 September 2002 - The War Party's imperial plans, Patrick J. Buchanan, World Net Daily

14 July 2002 - The great charade; As the West prepares for an assault on Iraq, John Pilger argues that 'war on terror' is a smokescreen created by the ultimate terrorist ... America itself, the 'Observer', Guardian Unlimited

The fanatics who attacked America came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. No bombs fell on these American protectorates. Instead, more than 5,000 civilians have been bombed to death in stricken Afghanistan, the latest a wedding party of 40 people, mostly women and children. Not a single al-Qaeda leader of importance has been caught.

Following this 'stunning victory', hundreds of prisoners were shipped to an American concentration camp in Cuba, where they have been held against all the conventions of war and international law. No evidence of their alleged crimes has been produced, and the FBI confirms only one is a genuine suspect. In the United States, more than 1,000 people of Muslim background have 'disappeared'; none has been charged. Under the draconian Patriot Act, the FBI's new powers include the authority to go into libraries and ask who is reading what.

Meanwhile, the Blair government has made fools of the British Army by insisting they pursue warring tribesmen: exactly what squaddies in putties and pith helmets did over a century ago when Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, described Afghanistan as one of the 'pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world'.

There is no war on terrorism; it is "the great game" speeded up. The difference is the rampant nature of the superpower, ensuring infinite dangers for us all.

...Contrary to propaganda orchestrated from Washington and London, the coming attack has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction', if these exist at all. The reason is that America wants a more compliant thug to run the world's second greatest source of oil.

 

Afganistan

Iraq (pictures from Baghdad)

When was the last time the U.S. Bombed Iraq?

21 Dec 2002 - Seven killed as German helicopter crashes in Kabul, by David Brunnstrom and Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters
10 November 2002
- 16 US-Soldaten getötet?, der Spiegel Online
28 September 2002 - Doubts set in on Afghan mission , by Rupert Wingfield Hayes, BBC
The Aftermath in Afganistan
, Austin Against War
23 August 2002 - Two US soldiers killed in Kandahar; Teenager fires shot on US soldiers, Balochistan Post
10 August 2002 - At Least 6 American Paratroopers Killed in the Afghan Province of Paktika, Pravda online
29 July 2002, US accused of airstrike cover-up, The Times (London)
29 July 2002, Six US soldiers killed, four others missing in Khost, The Balochistan Post
28 July 2002, War on terrorism no longer seen as GOP's ace in the election hole, Corpus Christi Caller Times
9 December 2001 - War's Hidden Cost, By John H.Cushman, Jr., New York Times

4 February 2003 - Saddam Insists He Does Not Want War, by Barry Renfrew, Associated Press/Washington Post
31 January 2003
- A War Crime or an Act of War?, By Stephen C. Pelletiere, New York Times
13 January 2003 - U.S. Strikes Iraq Anti-Ship Missile Site; American Warplanes Strike Anti-Ship Missile Launcher in Southern Iraq, Pentagon Says, ABCNews.com/Associated Press
23 December 2002 - Ted Rall


10 December 2002
- Hollywood performers oppose war with Iraq, AP, My AOL
10 December 2002 - Groups Gather to Protest Iraq War, AP, My AOL
27 November 2002 - Iraq wants press at inspections -- UN doesn't; Inspectors say reporters will make it difficult to do 'professional job', by Bassem Mroue, Toronto Star
18 November 2002 - Baghdad warns that a US strike will lead it to hit back at Israel, by Paul Waugh, The Independent (UK)
14 October 2002 - Now what do we do in Iraq?, by Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times
18 September 2002 - Robert Fisk: President Bush wants war, not justice - and he'll soon find another excuse for it, The Independent
6 September 2002 - Wake-up call, The Guardian [The US might not win in an attack on Iraq]
4 September 2002 - Arguments Against a War on Iraq, by Rep. Ron Paul, MD, In the U.S. House of Representatives, lewrockwell.com
August 2002 - Does Not Compute

The idea of this war is to make the world a safer place, which means that the threat to Iraqi lives should be no more and no less than the threat to American lives.

Formally, we can express this as:
PA.LA = PI.LI
Where: PA = the probability of an American citizen dying as the result of enemy action and
LA = the value of an American's life
PI and LI represent the corresponding values for an Iraqi.

The probability values can only be established empirically, but from observation, PA is close to zero and PI is very close (perhaps equal) to one:
PA -> 0, PI -> 1

To solve this equation, we use the Self-Evident Truth, "All Men Are Created Equal" (Franklin, Jefferson, et al. 1776) to establish that: LA = LI

Therefore, reducing both sides we establish that:
PA = PI
finally, simplify the probabilities to get 0 = 1
In terms of logic gates:
TRUE = FALSE

And there we have the basis for the war. QED.

Stop war on Iraq before it starts - new anti-war movement
24 August 2002 - US Needs Allies to Hit Iraq-Former Secretary Baker, Reuters
23 August 2002 - Hey, we could lose in Iraq, by Gregg Dobbs, Scripps Howard News Service
22 August 2002 - Bombing Iraq to Protect Israel, by James J. David, Media Monitors Network
22 August 2002 - "Wag the Puppy" -- New Twist in Media War by Norman Solomon
20 August 2002 - Seven fallacies of US plans to invade Iraq, by Stephen Zunes, Asia Times

1. A war against Iraq would be illegal
2. Regional allies widely oppose a US attack
3. There is no evidence of Iraqi links to al-Qaeda or other anti-American terrorists
4. There is no proof that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction
5. Iraq is no longer a significant military threat to its neighbors
6. There are still nonmilitary options available
7. Defeating Iraq would be militarily difficult

20 August 2002 - Iraq says three civilians hurt in Western air raid, MSNBC

U.S. and British jets bombed targets in southern Iraq on Tuesday for the third time in a week, wounding three civilians, the Iraqi Air Force Command said.
19 August 2002 - Iraq urges Arabs to unite and repel US crusade, Arabia.com
19 August 2002 - General tells Bush: Don't go it alone, Times Online
19 August 2002 - The case against war on Iraq, by Howard Zinn, Boston Globe

The facts: This regime is unquestionably tyrannical; it invaded a neighboring country 12 years ago; it used chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels 15 years ago [controverted below]. The conjectures: Iraq may have biological and chemical weapons today. It may possibly be on the way to developing one nuclear weapon.

But none of these facts or conjectures, even if true, make Iraq a clear and present danger. The fact that Iraq is a tyranny would not, in itself, constitute grounds for preemptive war. There are many tyrannies in the world, some kept in power by the United States. Saudi Arabia is only one example. That Iraq has cruelly attacked its Kurdish minority can hardly be a justification for war. After all, the United States remained silent, and indeed was a supporter of the Iraqi regime, when it committed that act.

19 August 2002 - Israel urges US to strike, The Age
16 August 2002 - US adviser warns of Armageddon, The Guardian Unlimited
15 August 2002 - Rice Calls Saddam an Evil Man, "the "moral case" for removing Saddam from power", Yahoo News
13 Aug 2002 - Iraq tells US to drop war threats, Times of India
11 August 2002 - BUSH STANCE ON IRAQ CRUMBLING [Let's hope so!], Paul Gilfeather, Daily Mirror (London)
10 August 2002 - Bush Calls Iraq an 'Enemy Until Proven Otherwise', Yahoo! News
6 August 2002, Iraq and the United States: Who’s Menacing Whom? by Robert Higgs, LewRockwell.com
6 August 2002, UN chief warns against Iraq war, The Independent
6 August 2002, German leader says no to Iraq war, John Hooper, Hanover, The Guardian
5 August 2002, U.S. Planes Strike Iraqi Facility, Associated Press, Washington Post
5 August 2002, BE VERY AFRAID and make your fears known!, Lewis News:

...the USA has no palpable excuse to invade Iraq. Even if the US had a special computer chip implanted in Saddam's head, just thinking about what he would like to do to the US does not give this nation the right to haul off and invade Iraq. A futile war effort against Iraq would not only be a political and economic disaster for the United States, it may well be the last war the US ever fights. If, for whatever reason, Iran, China and the League of Arab Nations decide to jump in on Saddam's side of the war, then the US will no longer be a superpower (or the illusion of one), it will be a total has-been on the world's political scene. ...It is not disloyalty to give honest advice or express honest opinions on things that affect all of us as a people.

5 August 2002, Double warning against Iraq war, Times Online: warned President Bush yesterday that invading Iraq would cause an “explosion” in the Middle East and consign the United States to defeat in its War on Terror.
4 August 2002, Bush Insists Saddam Must Go Even If He Allows Weapons Inspections, AFP
4 August 2002, This war would not be a just war, Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, Guardian Unlimited
29 July 2002, US exploited UN arms teams -- ex-UN chief inspector, MSNBC, Stockholm

17 July 2002, Rumsfeld: Leaking Classified Info 'Outrageously Irresponsible', by Sgt. 1st Class Kathleen T. Rhem, Armed Forces Press Service, and a related story:
CIA Official Calls for "Sending SWAT Teams into Journalists’ Homes", Memory Hole, article withdrawn from NewsMax 27 July 2002

Isn't Saddam Hussein the world's worst bad guy?

Israel Plans Blitzkrieg to Capture Arab Oil Fields; Operation Shekhinah, Part One, Joe Vialls, 30 January 2002
During the late eighties and nineties, the fledgling “New World Order” and the media had spent millions of dollars demonizing President Saddam Hussein, to the point where he was eventually regarded by 95% of the western public as “The Butcher of Baghdad”. Not only was this Iraqi demon allegedly manufacturing weapons of mass destruction almost identical to those stored in America, he was also the tyrant who “gassed his own Kurds at Halabja”.

In fact President Hussein did no such thing. In February 1990 the US Army War College published a report titled “Iraqi Power & US Security in the Middle East”, which proved the Kurds of Halabja died as the direct result of an Iranian Phosgene gas attack

This war is reaching new levels of barbarity:

War crimes committed on this front by the United States government in the name of Americans:

Pentagon Documents Show U.S. Intentionally Used Sanctions to Destroy Iraq's Water Supply, Radio Islam


A 1979 protocol to the Geneva Convention states: "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works."

Central Asia

Qatar, other Persian Gulf states

As the United States continues to construct military bases, use and revamp strategic airfields, and distribute troops throughout Central Asia, China and Russia, among others, have taken note.

Even from its very outset, the "war on terrorism" was seen by many analysts and policy makers in the region as pure pretext for an invasive and undesirable U.S. presence. And since September 11th the increased U.S. military breadth in Central Asia is without precedent.

Manas International Airport, an old Soviet-era facility located in northern Kyrgyzstan, is home to a "13,000-foot runway to accommodate the largest bombers...located 19 miles outside of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan and only 300 miles from the Chinese border."

11 September 2002 - U.S. to Move Central Command HQ to Qatar, by Bret Baier, Fox News

Syria and Lebanon

Jordan

28 August 2002, Other Middle East targets?, by John K. Cooley, Christian Science Monitor

...Middle East media claim that noises from Washington mean that Israel, backed by the US, will launch "preemptive" war on Lebanon and Syria, perhaps before any US-Israeli strike on Iraq. The object would be to "neutralize" old strongholds of the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah guerrilla movement and remaining Palestinian bases.
13 August 2002 - 4,000 U.S. troops arriving in Jordan for major exercises, World Tribune.com

Iran

Indonesia

13 Aug 2002 - Iran's Khatami Says U.S. Creates 'War-Like' Tension, Yahoo News

Bali night club blast:

15 October 2002 - Indonesian anger at FBI investigation, by Dan McDougall, The Scotsman
14 October 2002 - U.S. Intelligence: Bali Attack 'Sophisticated', Tabassum Zakaria, Yahoo News [US insists sophisticated bomb used in Bali, built with US-made explosives, "proves" Al Qaeda behind attack.]

Saudi Arabia, too???

Phillipines, other venues

21 August 2002 - Flight of Saudi funds from US raises concern, by James Politi in London and Julie Earle in New York, Financial Times - [cause and effect anyone?]
15 Aug 2002 - Saudi Arabia gives US the cold shoulder, Times (London) Online
6 August 2002 - Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies, Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post
13 June 2002 - Washington seizes on Philippines hostage deaths to extend military presence, by Keith Morgan, World Socialist Web Site

bin Laden, al Qaida, other organizations

20 August 2002 - Bin Laden: from 'Evil One' to Unmentionable One, by Alan Elsner, Yahoo News
20 August 2002 - CNN'$ terror tapes; Al Qaeda footage bought & paid for, Daily News
18 August 2002 - Tapes shed new light on bin Laden's network, CNN.com, What Really Happened comments:

From "Wag The Dog" to "Gas The Dog" This is the purest war propaganda. One video of what may be Osama bin Laden mixed with a video of a dog being gassed which could have been created anywhere equals the US sinking to new lows trying to manufacture support for a war nobody but the oil companies want. This dog-video reminds me of Hill & Knowlton's much ballyhooed claim that Iraqi troops were stealing incubators from Kuwait hospitals and leaving premature babies to die on the floor. That was a hoax to sell a war. And until proven otherwise, the safest course is to assume this latest "shock video" is just another propaganda stunt by the public relations firms which grow rich and fat off of your tax dollars by lying to you for the US Government. Anonymous US officials have declared this to be "unquestionable" evidence that al Qaeda has chemical weapons. I find it very questionable. For one thing, the compare the quality of the dog video with that of the famous Osama "confession" tape. Why does a dog get much better video quality than the boss?, WhatRealyHappened.com


18 August 2002 - Abdullah certain bin Laden is alive, CNN.com
30 July 2002, Report: Bin Laden alive, preparing attack, UPI

We wonder...

10 August 2002 - Terror threat overblown, says expert, Christian Bourge, UPI
9 August 2002 - A Banker's War - and the President who was a traitor. Could history be repeating itself?, BankIndex

This war for oil

5 August 2002, Did the planned oil pipeline through Afganistan influence America's decision to invade and install a new government there? - Join the Debate!
May - June 2001, The Great Caspian Sea Oil Pipeline Game, Andrew I. Killgore, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
"War is a racket", Smedley Darlington Butler, Common Sense, 1935
(retired U.S. Marine Corps Major General. Butler is the sort of person for whom the word "colorful" is woefully inadequate. Butler won America's highest military award for bravery (the Congressional Medal of Honor) twice.)
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.... Looking back on it, I felt I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.

a little humor to overcome our horror at the prospects of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Perle/Wolfowitz's war This Modern World - History of the War on Terror


About terrorism:

1995 - Historical Dictionary of Terrorism, by by Sean Anderson and Stephen Sloan The Scarecrow Press, Inc.


About war in general:

War, Peace, and the State, by Joseph R. Stromberg, lewrockwell.com

This essay lists essential historical readings on wars (and related matters) which have involved or affected the United States (plural), starting in 1776. The framework is a Rothbardian one, in which wars are not sealed off from domestic politics, the ambitions of state bureaucrats, economic life and motives, and ideological currents. The perspective chosen is broadly "revisionist," although general works are included which will add to the reader’s overall knowledge of the subject.


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