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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
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 Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 4:07 pm Post subject: The elephant in the room |
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The Thing We Don't Talk About
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 23 June 2005
With the revelation of the secret Downing Street Minutes, which exposed the fact that George Bush and Tony Blair had decided to invade Iraq in April of 2002, a heated debate has blown through media, congressional and activist circles. The decision to go to war in Iraq was made before any public debate was initiated, before the United Nations was brought into the conversation, confirming that Bush's blather about wanting peace and leaving war as the last resort was just that: blather.
So why did we go?
It had been suspected, and has now been confirmed by the Minutes, that Bush took us to war on false pretenses and by way of a whole constellation of lies and exaggerations. First it was the weapons of mass destruction that were not there. Then it was connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda that did not exist. Finally, it became about bringing freedom and democracy to the region, which has emphatically not happened.
Threaded through the discussion was the belief that Bush and his petroleum-company allies lusted after Iraq's oil. There was also the idea that Bush wanted Saddam's head because of the "unfinished business" left by his father in 1991. Some whispered that Iraq had intended to change the monetary basis of its petroleum dealings from the dollar to the Euro, an action that would have spelled financial disaster for the boys in Houston. Finally, many believed Bush ramped up a war push in order to give Republicans a flag-waving platform to run on in the 2002 midterms.
All of these were on the table as reasons for an invasion, though most of them were not included in public debate. Yet the real reasons behind this war, the real reasons for many of our military actions over the years, were never discussed. As with almost everything we deal with today in the foreign policy realm, the real reasons we invaded Iraq harken back to World War II and the Cold War.
When the United States jumped into World War II, President Roosevelt ordered the American economy be put on a wartime footing. This was a sound decision: the country had to speed its industrial capabilities up to a sprint in order to manufacture a huge fighting army out of whole cloth. The action was successful beyond measure. The economy was invigorated, the war was won, and in the process the military/industrial complex, so named by President Eisenhower, was established as a power player in the American economy.
In 1947, President Harry Truman put forth the Truman Doctrine, a broad policy of foreign intervention to combat the feared spread of Communism around the world. The Doctrine was essentially created by a small band of men like Paul Nitze, who were the precursors of what we now call neo-conservatives. Nitze, it should be noted, was the mentor of Paul Wolfowitz, who went on to be the mentor of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
The establishment of the Truman Doctrine, the establishment of the "permanent crisis" that was the Cold War, required that the American economy remain on a wartime footing. There it has remained to this day, despite the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the threat of a global communist takeover. Ten thousand books have been written on this subject, on the impact of our wartime economic footing upon domestic policy, the environment, global affairs and politics. In the end, however, the fact that our economy is set on a wartime footing means one simple thing.
We need wars.
Without wars, the economy flakes and falls apart. Without wars, the trillions of dollars spent on weapons systems, military preparedness and a planetary army would dry up, dealing a death blow to the economy as currently constituted. Without wars or the threat of wars, the populace is not so easily controlled and manipulated.
Let us be clear, however. When I say "we," I do not refer to your average working man and woman on the street. The man running the shoe store or the woman managing the bar does not need war to remain economically viable. The "we" I speak of is that overwhelmingly wealthy and powerful few who have wired their fortunes into the manufacture of weapons, the plumbing of oil, and the collection of spoils through political largesse.
These are the people who need war. They need it to pile up the contracts from the Pentagon, to enrich the banking institutions that protect them, to pay the lawyers who defend them, to pay the lobbyists who sustain them, to purchase the politicians who champion them, and to buy up the media that hides them from sight.
Yet though this group is small in number, they are "we," for they are our leaders and our myth-makers. They have convinced the majority of this population that war is a necessity. They create the premises for combat and invasion, they convince and cajole and, when necessary, frighten us into line. All too often, almost every time, we buy into the fictions they manufacture, thus sustaining the "permanent crisis" mentality and the need for war after war after war.
The economic need for war creates the required excuses for war. The "permanent crisis" of the Cold War motivated the United States to support the Shah in Iran, a decision that led to the Islamic Revolution and the establishment of Iran as a permanent enemy. The Cold War motivated us to support Saddam Hussein financially and militarily as a bulwark against Iran. The Cold War motivated us to establish the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia to ensure a steady supply of oil. The Cold War motivated us to support Osama bin Laden and the so-called "Jihadists" in Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviet invaders.
Now, we prepare to invade Iran. We have invaded Iraq for the second time in 15 years. We will never invade Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that this nation's vast wealth and Wahabbist extremists make it the birthing bed of international terrorism. We lost two towers in New York City at the hands of a group that we created in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. Put plainly, the "permanent crisis" of the Cold War created a cycle of military self-justification. We build enemies with arms and money, and then we destroy them with arms and money, thus keeping our wartime economy afloat.
The Cold War ended more than ten years ago, but we still need war, and we need that "permanent crisis" to continue the cycle of military self-justification. If a legitimate war is not available, we will create one because we have to. We have our new "permanent crisis," which we call the War on Terror, another turn of the cycle created by an attack that our foreign policy and war-justifications of the last 50 years made almost inevitable.
We need wars. That's why we are in Iraq. This invasion and occupation of that nation has given our economy the war it needs, and has also created the justification for future wars by creating legions of enemies in the Mideast and around the world. Our wartime economy will tolerate no less.
Talking about Bush's lies regarding weapons of mass destruction, or about bringing democracy to the region, or about the dollar-to-Euro transfer, or about the midterm elections, is window-dressing. We invaded Iraq because we had to. This is the elephant in the room, the foreign policy reality nobody talks about.
If you want peace, work to change the underpinnings of our economy. Until that change is made, there will always be wars, invasions, and lies to brings such things about. It is what it is.
[ William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.]
SDR
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"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:42 am Post subject: |
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The Truman doctrine ? You wish.
Cui prodest scelus, is fecit. As Seneca said, the murderer is the one who benefits from the murder.
Americans should be more concerned about the lies and obstruction surrounding 9.11.
Truman used the Cold War as a permanent threat of a crisis. What is happening today has involved violent attacks on America, starting of pointless wars, and a level of barbarity and destruction that go far beyond Trumans ideas, including the destruction of Americas own freedoms.
Who wanted Iraq attacked and reduced to a state of chaos ? The one and only nation in the world that was pleased to hear about 9.11. And still the stupid Goim - as the Zionists refer to Americans - keep financing and supporting Israel.
America is already in a state of war against Iran, and plans for attacking Syria are well advanced.
As Sharon famously said to Peres: dont worry about American pressure, we control America.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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SDR
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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A friend reminded me that a maxim making the rounds at the time of America's founding -- he wasn't able to tell me its author -- was:
"A nation's standing army is a threat to the liberty of its people" -- or words to that effect.
SDR
_________________
"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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SDR
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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Rumsfeld: Insurgency Could Last for Years
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday he is bracing for even more violence in Iraq and acknowledged that the insurgency "could go on for any number of years."
Defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years, he said, with Iraqi security forces, not U.S. and foreign troops, taking the lead and finishing the job.
The assessment comes on the heels of the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll showing public doubts about the war reaching a high point — with more than half saying that invading Iraq was a mistake.
The top U.S. commander in the Middle East appealed for public support of the soldiers and their mission. "We don't need to fight this war looking over our shoulder worrying about the support back home," Gen. John Abizaid told CNN's "Late Edition."
In a deadly week for U.S. forces, an ambush on a convoy carrying female troops killed four Marines, including at least one woman. At least 1,735 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an AP count.
On Sunday, bombings in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq killed at least 38 people.
Rumsfeld, making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, said insurgents want to disrupt the democratic transformation as Iraqi leaders draft a constitution and plan for elections in December to choose a full-term government.
"I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections," the Pentagon chief told NBC's "Meet the Press." And after then, it will take a long time to drive out insurgents.
"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday."
"Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency," he said.
A British newspaper reported Sunday that American officials recently met secretly with Iraqi insurgent commanders north of Baghdad to try to negotiate an end to the bloodshed.
Speaking generally, Rumsfeld said those kind of meetings "go on all the time" and that Iraqis "will decide what their relationships with various elements of insurgents will be. We facilitate those from time to time."
Abizaid said U.S. and Iraqi officials "are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to ... and clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community. It makes sense to talk to them."
Echoing Rumsfeld, Abizaid made clear that "we're not going to compromise" with Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The contacts, the Pentagon leaders said, were intended to make it easier for the Shiite-led government to reach out to minority Sunnis.
The strength of the violent opposition to the U.S.-led coalition since the invasion in March 2003 has raised questions about whether the Bush administration understood that such a sustained reaction was possible.
Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., stressed that he and other critics of Bush's Iraq policy are determined to show their support for American soldiers in Iraq. At the same time, "we're also determined to be constructive critics of the policies which not only sent them there, as unequipped, and without international support, and without plans for the aftermath," he said.
Before the war, Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that Iraqis freed from Saddam Hussein's rule would greet American troops as liberators. Rumsfeld said Sunday he gave President Bush a list of about 15 things "that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started."
He said they included Iraq's oil wells being set on fire; mass refugees and relocations; blown-up bridges; and a moat of oil around Baghdad, the capital.
"So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen," Rumsfeld said.
Asked if his list included the possibility of such a strong insurgency, Rumsfeld said: "I don't remember whether that was on there, but certainly it was discussed."
Rumsfeld said Iraq's security forces have gained respect among Iraqis. He suggested insurgents' ability to kill in large numbers did not indicate a decline in public support for efforts by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, or that political, economic and security progress has been lacking.
"It doesn't take a genius to go blow up a restaurant or attack a police station, a suicide bomber. You can kill — a kid with a suicide vest can kill a lot of people," Rumsfeld said.
"Does that mean that the population is 'going south' and there's no plan and no progress? No, it doesn't mean that at all," he said.
Rumsfeld defended Cheney's recent statement that the insurgents are in their "last throes," saying there are many ways to measure their strength.
"If you look up 'last throes,' it can mean a violent last throe," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "This Week." Violence may escalate, he said, because insurgents "have so much to lose between now and December." he said.
With some lawmakers urging the president to set a timetable for bringing U.S. troops home, Abizaid said Americans "need to be patient."
In both Afghanistan and Iraq, Abizaid said, each country's security forces will take on more of the burden as they become more capable. He predicted that Iraqi security forces would take the lead in fighting insurgents by next spring or summer.
"That doesn't mean that I'm saying we'll come home by then," Abizaid told CBS' "Face the Nation."
"We'll have to judge how they're doing, how the political process is, how the situation is abroad," he added.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.
_____________________
The longer the better, eh?
SDR
_________________
"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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It all reminds me uncomfortably of Dr Strangelove.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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SDR
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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Prehaps the popularity of "Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was based on its appeal to people's common sense, in recognizing an accurate portrayal of forces already in effect at the time of its release -- and borne out over the subsequent years.
"Animal Farm," "Brave New World," and "1984" would be examples of the same phenomenon ?
Although we common folk may not be able to formulate accurately, completely or effectively some of the larger truths in operation in our lives -- or, perhaps at the periphery of our lives, whitewashed as they are, to the extent possible, by the media handmaidens paid and coerced so to do -- we DO recognize those truths when they appear in conveniently pre-digested form. Such was my reaction when I encountered the article at the top of this thread.
SDR
_________________
"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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Richard Haut
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Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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Before the last US election there was an article by John Pilger in which he said that it would be better if Bush won.
The reason is exactly as you state. We can recognise what is going on when it does not have the subtle cover used by more capable politicians.
It is the stupidity of Bush, Blair and their gang that they did not bother to use the whitewash properly.
Lying is very difficult - because it is essential to retain the illusion of truth. Bush and Blair both lie in a fatuous way, merely making things up as they go along.
The weapon that is going to bring them down is not - hopefully - nuclear, or a military coup or revolution, but simple laughter. The Emperors new clothes.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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SDR
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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We may certainly hope that is so.
While it would be possible to forecast many of the ploys remaining in their "arsenal of prevarication" and domestic anti-insurgency campaign, there is still the likelihood of unforseen developments -- they can certainly bring to bear an almost unlimited amount of for$e (!) to retain control.
But you're absolutely right; we continue to be amazed at the boldness and baldness of the lies.
SDR
_________________
"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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