How US warmongers exploited the 9/11 terrorist attacks
How US warmongers exploited the 9/11 terrorist attacks
By Norm Dixon
[This article was first published on
September 11, 2002, on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Its observations remain
relevant to this day.]
* * *
In the week before the first anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, TV networks aired a seemingly never-ending string of ``special events'' featuring ``exclusive'' or ``never before seen'' footage of the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) and its aftermath. People around the world again experienced the horror, anger and tragedy of that terrible day, when almost 3000 working people were murdered.
Culminating on the anniversary of the day itself, thousands of journalists and TV presenters from across the globe will converge at ``ground zero'' in New York for ``remembrance and reflection''. Solemn ceremonies will be telecast and patriotic speeches by top US politicians broadcast, restating Washington's determination to pursue its ``war on terrorism''.
But by the end of the 9/11 anniversary hoopla, after the thousands of hours of TV time and the column-kilometres published in the world's newspapers and magazines, you can be sure that the most glaring aspect of the post-9/11 period will have remained unmentionable by all but the most honest commentators: that Washington's ``war on terrorism'' is a cynical fraud.
The most repeated 9/11 media cliche is that on that day ``the world changed''. However, few commentators have bothered to explain how.
September
11 did mark a change in the US and world politics -- just how permanent
remains to be seen. On that day, the US rulers realised that those
awful acts of terrorism provided them with a golden opportunity to
achieve the US capitalist ruling class' long-held objective of world
domination -- the ``American century'' it predicted was at hand at the
end of World War II.
Top officials in President George Bush junior's administration seized that opportunity, coldly calculating that the traumatised US people would now support significant military interventions by US ground troops abroad, in the guise of fighting ``terrorism'', even if there was a risk of large numbers of US casualties -- something they have refused to accept since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Before September 11, Washington had long labelled governments and political movements it opposed as ``terrorists''. The US State Department each year publishes a list of countries that ``support terrorism''; for years it has included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. Until September 11, that was not enough to convince the US people to support sustained military operations against them.
Almost as soon as the smoke from the rubble of the WTC had cleared, the Bush administration moved to take the focus of the ``war on terrorism'' from the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocities -- Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network of religious reactionaries -- to US-defined ``terrorism'' and ``evil'' in general.
``From
this day forward'', Bush told Congress on September 20, 2001, ``any
nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded
as a hostile regime''. The ``first war of the 21st century'' will not
end, he declared, ``until every terrorist group of global reach has
been found, stopped and defeated''.
The bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. On November 21, Bush outlined what has become known as the ``Bush doctrine'': ``Afghanistan is just the beginning of the war against terror. There are other terrorists who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all these threats are defeated. Across the world, and across the years, we will fight these evil ones, and we will win.
``America has a message for the nations of the world: if you harbour terrorists, you're terrorists; if you train or arm a terrorist, you are a terrorist; if you feed or fund a terrorist, you're a terrorist, and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends.''
On November 26, with Iraq now in his cross-hairs, Bush expanded the scope of the ``war on terrorism'' further when he stated, ``If they develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorise nations, they will be held accountable''.
The transformation was complete with Bush's January 29, 2002, State of the Union speech. The next stage of Washington's ``war on terrorism'' was officially delinked from the specific events of 9/11. Bush did not even mention bin Laden or al Qaeda. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had suddenly taken the elusive Bin Laden's place as public enemy number one.
The ``axis of evil'' that now topped Washington's hit-list -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- has no proven links with al Qaeda, bin Laden or the 9/11 attacks. Nor do three of the four organisations Bush cited by name -- Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah -- have a connection with al Qaeda; their ``crime'' was to oppose Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
Bush also bluntly stated that the US had the right to unilaterally launch military action against ``terrorists'' inside any country, and launch preemptive military strikes against states that Washington suspected of developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons: ``Some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it, if they do not act, America will.''
Bush
reminded the world that US vengeance has no geographic limits. ``Our
armed forces [in Afghanistan] have delivered a message now clear to
every enemy of the United States: even 7000 miles away, across oceans
and continents, on mountain tops and in caves, you will not escape the
justice of this nation'', he warned.
In less than six months, Bush's ``war on terrorism'' had morphed seamlessly from action directed at the alleged perpetrators and backers of the 9/11 mass murders into a war against any Third World state or political movement that Washington considers too independent, too defiant or a hurdle to the goal of US global hegemony.
Bush's State of the Union speech was the formal announcement that Washington is unashamedly seeking world domination. As the February 1, 2002, New York Times editorial noted: ``The application of power and intimidation has returned to the forefront of American foreign policy. Not since America's humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam more than a quarter-century ago has US foreign policy relied so heavily on non-nuclear military force, or the threat of it, to defend American interests around the world.''
Since the end of World War II, the US ruling class' overarching strategic goal has been the maintenance of overwhelming military, economic and political dominance and the prevention of the emergence of other powers -- great or regional -- that could challenge that position. This goal was dubbed the ``American century'' at the end of World War II.
However, Washington's expectations of total world domination were frustrated for nearly 50 years by the industrial and military strength of the Soviet Union and the national liberation struggles, beginning with the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and the Cuban revolution in 1959, followed by the wave of successful independence struggles in Africa and Asia throughout the 1960s that culminated in the historic defeat of US forces in Vietnam in 1975.
Washington's defeat in Vietnam was a political defeat as well as a military one. Over time, with the assistance of a growing anti-war movement, the US people had come to realise that the US rulers had cynically lied when they proclaimed the bloody war against the people of Vietnam as a fight for democracy -- at the cost of 50,000 young US soldiers' lives and the deaths of millions of Vietnamese -- when in fact it was an unjust, imperialist war of aggression.
The ``Vietnam syndrome'' was born, and for more than 25 years, it made it politically impossible for Washington to deploy large numbers of ground troops in ``hot'' wars overseas.
Militarily and politically hamstrung by the Vietnam syndrome, US imperialism suffered further setbacks in the late 1970s with the victories of the independence struggles in Angola and Mozambique, a revolution in Ethiopia in 1977, the 1978 Afghan revolution, and the revolutionary processes begun in Nicaragua and Grenada in 1979.
The overthrow of the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979 was also a serious threat to US imperialism's hold on the strategic oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Under President Ronald Reagan, who came to power in 1980, the US ruling class launched a counter-attack against what it dishonestly dubbed ``Soviet expansionism''. Washington massively funded and armed counter-revolutionary bandits and terrorists, such as RENAMO in Mozambique, UNITA in Angola, the contras in Nicaragua and the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. Reagan also boosted US support to the apartheid regime in South Africa and dictatorial regimes like those in Pakistan, Indonesia and Chile.
However, Reagan's strategy was also specifically engineered to avoid putting US troops in harm's way. When Reagan ordered US troops to invade Grenada in 1983 (and when George Bush senior ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989), the operation relied on massive firepower before elite US troops entered and then left as quickly as possible.
However, Reagan massively boosted US war spending across the board, including on the ``star wars'' missile defence system. The goal of this fanciful project was to achieve the ability to launch a first-strike nuclear attack on the USSR without fear of retaliation. Attempts to match these massive military expenditures played a role in ``bleeding'' the Soviet Union, hastening its collapse.
With the demise of the USSR in 1991, the US rulers hoped that the ``American century'' was again on the horizon. George Bush senior hailed the US victory over Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War as also marking the ``end of the Vietnam syndrome'' and declared that Washington would now oversee a ``New World Order''.
However, he spoke too soon. Bush senior had been not prepared to test the Vietnam syndrome. The US military had relied on the use of its overwhelming air superiority and its massive technological edge to avoid significant ground operations. Fear of the Vietnam syndrome in part deterred Bush from sending US troops into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Throughout the 1990s, this was the pattern of US military operations. The Vietnam syndrome was shown to be alive and kicking with the public outcry in the US to the deaths of 18 soldiers during Washington's ``humanitarian'' intervention in Somalia.
The Bush senior and the Clinton administrations clothed their military actions in the guise of defending human rights, halting ``ethnic cleansing'' or providing humanitarian assistance. They were conducted under the cover of regional or UN ``peacekeeping'' operations and were generally conditional on winning multilateral endorsement.
The American people's hopes that the end of the Cold War would result in much reduced military spending and a ``peace dividend'' also frustrated US ruling class demands for the maintenance of military spending at Cold War levels.
With 9/11, the dominant wing in Bush junior's administration clearly believes the Vietnam syndrome has finally been put to rest.
The claim that the attacks on the WTC ``changed the world'' are part of a myth that is being carefully crafted: that the launch of the ``war on terrorism'' was simply a response to the terrible events of one day.
This myth-making is exemplified by a melodramatic September 5, 2002, article by Associated Press White House correspondent Ron Fournier: ``In a cramped nuclear shelter deep beneath the White House, President Bush stared across a spare wooden table and told his national security team, `Get the troops ready'. Twelve hours after the terrorist strikes, moments after his nationally televised address, Bush was preparing for a war that would transform and define his presidency -- `This is a time for self defence', he told his war council. `This is our time'.''
The truth is more straightforward. In the 12 months following 9/11, Bush junior's administration cynically seized upon and exploited the terror attacks to launch a drive to achieve the US ruling class dream of an ``American century'' or ``New World Order'' -- an unchallenged global US military, political and economic empire.
The power behind the throne of George Bush junior's regime is vice president Dick Cheney and a warmongering team made up of veterans of the Reagan and Bush senior administrations.
Throughout the 1990s, these ``hawks'' organised for their return to power, formulated their programs for unchallenged US hegemony and advocated the unbridled use of US military power through a network of tightly interlocked right-wing ruling-class think-tanks -- the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Victory over Terrorism and the Center for Security Policy. The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal championed their views (and continue to do so).
The lessons of the Bush senior and Clinton administration, the new ``centurions'' constantly claimed, was that US power should not be constrained by attempts to balance US interests with those of its European or other allies. Alliances, international organisations or multilateral treaties must not get in the way of the unfettered exercise of US military or economic power.
Other key planks pushed by the hawks have been unconditional military and political support for Israel -- Washington's key ally in the Middle East -- and implacable opposition to any regimes in that region that could pose a threat to US domination of the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf. As a result, a trademark of the centurions has been extreme hostility towards the regimes in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and even Lebanon, as well as cheering every move made by Tel Aviv to crush the national liberation movement in occupied Palestine.
In 1997, the PNAC was established to promote ``American global leadership''. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld (now US defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (now deputy defence secretary) and Jeb Bush (Bush junior's brother) were signatories to the PNAC's founding ``statement of principle''. It stated bluntly: ``[Conservatives] seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposely promotes American principles abroad; and a national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
``America has a role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.''
The PNAC argued that the US must ``increase defense spending significantly'' and ``modernize our armed forces -- if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today'' ; ``strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values''; ``promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad''; and ``accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles''.
``Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today'', the PNAC conceded. ``But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.''
In September 2000, the PNAC fleshed out its imperial vision with the release of a report, Rebuilding America's defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The project's participants included Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby (who became Cheney's chief of staff) and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol.
The report's introduction noted that the US ``is the world's only superpower, combining preeminent military power, global technological leadership and the world's largest economy... At present the US faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible''. To preserve this ``desirable strategic situation'', the report stated, the US ``requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future''.
The report's authors admitted that they had built upon the 1992 draft of the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), which was prepared for Cheney, who was then US defence secretary in the Bush senior administration, Wolfowitz and Libby.
This document stated bluntly that the US must continue to ``discourage ... advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or ... even aspiring to a larger regional or global role ... [To achieve this, the US] must retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing ... those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which seriously unsettle international relations.''
This was an admission that the massive build-up of US military might in Europe, Asia and the Middle East after 1945 was not simply directed at containing ``Soviet expansionism'', crushing Third World revolutions and controlling natural resources such as Middle Eastern oil -- as vital to US interests as they were. It was also aimed at enmeshing its potential capitalist rivals -- Britain, France, Germany and Japan -- within US-dominated military alliances designed to prevent them developing independent armed forces.
The PNAC report endorsed the DPG's ``blueprint for maintaining US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests... The basic tenets of the DPG, in our judgment, remain sound.''
The PNAC report recommended that the US turn around the 1990s ``decade of defence neglect'' and boost war spending to a minimum of 3.5-3.8% of GDP (up from around 3%) by adding US$15 billion to US$20 billion annually; increase the numbers of active-duty military personnel from 1.4 million to 1.6 million; and ... reposition US forces ... by shifting permanently based forces to southeast Europe [the Balkans] and Southeast Asia [preferably the Philippines and/or Australia], and by changing naval deployment patterns to reflect growing US strategic concerns in East Asia [meaning the `containment' of China and the `defence' of Taiwan]''.
The
report also urged Washington to develop the capability to ``fight and
win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars'' and at the same time
``perform the `constabulary' duties associated with shaping the
security environment in critical regions''; maintain ``nuclear
strategic superiority'' by developing smaller ``bunker-buster'' nuclear
weapons and resuming nuclear testing; develop the ``star wars'' global
``missile defence system''; and ``control the new `international
commons' of space and `cyberspace' and pave the way for the creation of
a new military service -- US Space Forces -- with the mission of space
control.''[!]
As all the above indicates, the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz
cabal had had a long-standing program for the expansion of US hegemony.
What it lacked was the ``trigger'' to implement it or the existence of
a serious enough ``threat'' that would convince the US people to
abandon their desire for a ``peace dividend'' and their opposition to
US war casualties abroad.
Which is why the 9/11 attacks were a godsend for the Bush gang. Washington immediately recognised the opportunity with which it was presented. As Bush junior's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted: ``I really think this period is analogous to 1945 to 1947 in that the events ... started shifting the tectonic plates in international politics. And it's important to try to seize on that and position American interests and institutions before they harden again.''
Since 9/11, Bush's new centurions fast-tracked the implementation of their agenda in case the ``window of opportunity'' closed. They won a massive increases in military spending of US$48 billion, to US$379.3 billion, in 2002-2003. Adding non-Pentagon military spending, mostly by the energy department for the nuclear weapons program, total military spending was US$396.1 billion.
A further US$38 billion was spent on ``homeland defence'' -- mainly for the plethora of US police agencies. Washington has projected that the war budget will steadily increase to more that US$451 billion by 2007, a 30% increase.
Washington has signalled -- with its repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty -- that US military, economic and political power will not be subject to any form of international constraint.
It has been revealed that the US has plans to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states under guise of eliminating the threat of ``weapons of mass destruction''. There have also been reports that US special forces will soon be authorised to kill or capture ``terrorists'' anywhere in the world, whenever the opportunity arises, without having to obtain permission from the relevant government.
As a result of its war to overthrow the Taliban, Washington has secured a permanent military bases and stationed tens of thousands of troops for the first time in the increasingly strategic Central Asian region. From these bases, the US can more easily ``contain'' Russia and China, control the emerging oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea region, strengthen its hold over the Persian Gulf and increase further its military stranglehold on most of the world's vital energy resources.
Using the cover of the ``war on terrorism'', Washington has increased or resumed military funding for notoriously repressive regimes -- including as Yemen, Georgia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Colombia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics -- as well as sending thousands of troops and military advisers to help them crush anti-government movements.
Washington has given the green light for Russia to continue its brutal campaign against the Chechen freedom struggle and the Chinese government's repression of separatists in Xinjiang.
The
September 11 attacks and the subsequent US ``war on terrorism''
presented the US ruling-class warmongers with their biggest opportunity
yet to ``cure'' the Vietnam syndrome.
From Green Left Weekly, September 11, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
* 9/11
* Afghanistan
* history
* Iraq
* US imperialism
* war on terror
Comments
Sun, 09/26/2010 - 16:37 — normd
U.S. Sets "Decapitation of Government" As Early Goal of Combat
National Security Archive Update, September 22, 2010
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001
U.S. Sets "Decapitation of Government" As Early Goal of Combat
Talking
Points for Rumsfeld-Franks Meeting in November 2001 Outline Policy
Makers' Aims for the Conflict and Postwar Rule of Iraq
Declassified
Documents Show Bush Administration Diverting Attention and Resources to
Iraq Less than Two Months after Launch of Afghanistan War
For more information contact: Joyce Battle - 202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington,
DC, September 22, 2010 - Following instructions from President George
W. Bush to develop an updated war plan for Iraq, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld ordered CENTCOM Commander Gen. Tommy Franks in November
2001 to initiate planning for the "decapitation" of the Iraqi government
and the empowerment of a "Provisional Government" to take its place.
Talking
points for the Rumsfeld-Franks meeting on November 27, 2001, released
through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), confirm that policy
makers were already looking for ways to justify invading Iraq - as
indicated by Rumsfeld's first point, "Focus on WMD."
This
document shows that Pentagon policy makers cited early U.S. experience
in Afghanistan to justify planning for Iraq's post-invasion governance
in order to achieve their strategic objectives: "Unlike in Afghanistan,
important to have ideas in advance about who would rule afterwards."
Rumsfeld's
notes were prepared in close consultation with senior DOD officials
Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Among other insights, the materials
posted today by the National Security Archive shed light on the intense
focus on Iraq by high-level Bush administration officials long before
the attacks of 9/11, and Washington's confidence in perception
management as a successful strategy for overcoming public and allied
resistance to its plans.
This compilation further shows:
* The preliminary strategy Rumsfeld imparted to Franks while directing him to develop a new war plan for Iraq
*
Secretary of State Powell's awareness, three days into a new
administration, that Iraq "regime change" would be a principal focus of
the Bush presidency
* Administration determination to exploit
the perceived propaganda value of intercepted aluminum tubes - falsely
identified as nuclear related - before completion of even a preliminary
determination of their end use
* The difficulty of winning
European support for attacking Iraq (except that of British Prime
Minister Tony Blair) without real evidence that Baghdad was implicated
in 9/11
* The State Department's analytical unit observing that a
decision by Tony Blair to join a U.S. war on Iraq "could bring a
radicalization of British Muslims, the great majority of whom opposed
the September 11 attacks but are increasingly restive about what they
see as an anti-Islamic campaign"
* Pentagon interest in the
perception of an Iraq invasion as a "just war" and State Department
insights into the improbability of that outcome
Rumsfeld's
instructions to Franks included the establishment and funding of a
provisional government as a significant element of U.S. invasion
strategy. In the end the Pentagon changed course and instead ruled
post-invasion Iraq directly, first through the short-lived Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and then through Paul Bremer
and the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Today's posting is the
first of a three-part series of electronic briefing books detailing the
run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. This edition covers the critical
first year of George W. Bush's presidency. The following two - featuring
newly available British government documents - will treat the question
of whether the Bush administration ever seriously considered alternative
strategies for Iraq and how the U.S. and Great Britain attempted to
sell the war strategy to the world.
In addition to an analytical
essay and the documents, today's EBB includes two research aids - a
detailed timeline and an illuminating collection of quotations from key
individuals and government documents.
Visit the Archive's Web site for more information about today's posting.
http://www.nsarchive.org
* reply
Thu, 10/21/2010 - 00:38 — Mohammed AL-Saedi (not verified)
Who are the terrorists ?
Who are the terrorists ?
CIA USA ,,, CIA USA ,,, CIA USA, this was the slogan that the
protests were chanting years ago. America is involved countless terror
activities via its criminal espionage agency CIA in additional to
various means thats including puppets regimes. In recent move into same
terror-ism activities, America represent real danger on the world
safety, is propelling another puppet regime of the south Korea into
staging a tension on the region.
"The south Korean military warmongers has been busy with madcap
large-scale air battle ex-ercises with U.S. forces in the air over the
western part of the Korean Peninsula since October 15"
"exercises with the U.S. imperialists right after their provocative
PSI exercises came to a clo-se. This is an intolerable provocation to
the DPRK and a blatant challenge to the desire of the Koreans to see the inter-Korean relations improved and the need of the times."
"The puppet military is spearheading the exercises now under way in
the air over the western part of the Korean Peninsula with combined air
forces of south Korea and the U.S. involved. Herein lies a dangerous
military purpose"
Reference"
US and S. Korean Warmongers' Joint Air Battle Exercises Flayed
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201010/news19/20101019-05ee.html
Renewed American Threats: Building a Pretext to Wage War on North
Korea?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20227
Secrets of the CIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QYZBMIBOck
Secrets of The CIA - Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=803apgVhMDQ
http://links.org.au/node/1238
..............................................................................................................................................
Also of interest,
9/11 After A Decade: Have We Learned Anything?
by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26174
By Norm Dixon
[This article was first published on
September 11, 2002, on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Its observations remain
relevant to this day.]
* * *
In the week before the first anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, TV networks aired a seemingly never-ending string of ``special events'' featuring ``exclusive'' or ``never before seen'' footage of the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) and its aftermath. People around the world again experienced the horror, anger and tragedy of that terrible day, when almost 3000 working people were murdered.
Culminating on the anniversary of the day itself, thousands of journalists and TV presenters from across the globe will converge at ``ground zero'' in New York for ``remembrance and reflection''. Solemn ceremonies will be telecast and patriotic speeches by top US politicians broadcast, restating Washington's determination to pursue its ``war on terrorism''.
But by the end of the 9/11 anniversary hoopla, after the thousands of hours of TV time and the column-kilometres published in the world's newspapers and magazines, you can be sure that the most glaring aspect of the post-9/11 period will have remained unmentionable by all but the most honest commentators: that Washington's ``war on terrorism'' is a cynical fraud.
The most repeated 9/11 media cliche is that on that day ``the world changed''. However, few commentators have bothered to explain how.
September
11 did mark a change in the US and world politics -- just how permanent
remains to be seen. On that day, the US rulers realised that those
awful acts of terrorism provided them with a golden opportunity to
achieve the US capitalist ruling class' long-held objective of world
domination -- the ``American century'' it predicted was at hand at the
end of World War II.
Top officials in President George Bush junior's administration seized that opportunity, coldly calculating that the traumatised US people would now support significant military interventions by US ground troops abroad, in the guise of fighting ``terrorism'', even if there was a risk of large numbers of US casualties -- something they have refused to accept since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Before September 11, Washington had long labelled governments and political movements it opposed as ``terrorists''. The US State Department each year publishes a list of countries that ``support terrorism''; for years it has included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. Until September 11, that was not enough to convince the US people to support sustained military operations against them.
Almost as soon as the smoke from the rubble of the WTC had cleared, the Bush administration moved to take the focus of the ``war on terrorism'' from the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocities -- Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network of religious reactionaries -- to US-defined ``terrorism'' and ``evil'' in general.
``From
this day forward'', Bush told Congress on September 20, 2001, ``any
nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded
as a hostile regime''. The ``first war of the 21st century'' will not
end, he declared, ``until every terrorist group of global reach has
been found, stopped and defeated''.
The bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. On November 21, Bush outlined what has become known as the ``Bush doctrine'': ``Afghanistan is just the beginning of the war against terror. There are other terrorists who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all these threats are defeated. Across the world, and across the years, we will fight these evil ones, and we will win.
``America has a message for the nations of the world: if you harbour terrorists, you're terrorists; if you train or arm a terrorist, you are a terrorist; if you feed or fund a terrorist, you're a terrorist, and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends.''
On November 26, with Iraq now in his cross-hairs, Bush expanded the scope of the ``war on terrorism'' further when he stated, ``If they develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorise nations, they will be held accountable''.
The transformation was complete with Bush's January 29, 2002, State of the Union speech. The next stage of Washington's ``war on terrorism'' was officially delinked from the specific events of 9/11. Bush did not even mention bin Laden or al Qaeda. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had suddenly taken the elusive Bin Laden's place as public enemy number one.
The ``axis of evil'' that now topped Washington's hit-list -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- has no proven links with al Qaeda, bin Laden or the 9/11 attacks. Nor do three of the four organisations Bush cited by name -- Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah -- have a connection with al Qaeda; their ``crime'' was to oppose Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
Bush also bluntly stated that the US had the right to unilaterally launch military action against ``terrorists'' inside any country, and launch preemptive military strikes against states that Washington suspected of developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons: ``Some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it, if they do not act, America will.''
Bush
reminded the world that US vengeance has no geographic limits. ``Our
armed forces [in Afghanistan] have delivered a message now clear to
every enemy of the United States: even 7000 miles away, across oceans
and continents, on mountain tops and in caves, you will not escape the
justice of this nation'', he warned.
In less than six months, Bush's ``war on terrorism'' had morphed seamlessly from action directed at the alleged perpetrators and backers of the 9/11 mass murders into a war against any Third World state or political movement that Washington considers too independent, too defiant or a hurdle to the goal of US global hegemony.
Bush's State of the Union speech was the formal announcement that Washington is unashamedly seeking world domination. As the February 1, 2002, New York Times editorial noted: ``The application of power and intimidation has returned to the forefront of American foreign policy. Not since America's humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam more than a quarter-century ago has US foreign policy relied so heavily on non-nuclear military force, or the threat of it, to defend American interests around the world.''
Since the end of World War II, the US ruling class' overarching strategic goal has been the maintenance of overwhelming military, economic and political dominance and the prevention of the emergence of other powers -- great or regional -- that could challenge that position. This goal was dubbed the ``American century'' at the end of World War II.
However, Washington's expectations of total world domination were frustrated for nearly 50 years by the industrial and military strength of the Soviet Union and the national liberation struggles, beginning with the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and the Cuban revolution in 1959, followed by the wave of successful independence struggles in Africa and Asia throughout the 1960s that culminated in the historic defeat of US forces in Vietnam in 1975.
Washington's defeat in Vietnam was a political defeat as well as a military one. Over time, with the assistance of a growing anti-war movement, the US people had come to realise that the US rulers had cynically lied when they proclaimed the bloody war against the people of Vietnam as a fight for democracy -- at the cost of 50,000 young US soldiers' lives and the deaths of millions of Vietnamese -- when in fact it was an unjust, imperialist war of aggression.
The ``Vietnam syndrome'' was born, and for more than 25 years, it made it politically impossible for Washington to deploy large numbers of ground troops in ``hot'' wars overseas.
Militarily and politically hamstrung by the Vietnam syndrome, US imperialism suffered further setbacks in the late 1970s with the victories of the independence struggles in Angola and Mozambique, a revolution in Ethiopia in 1977, the 1978 Afghan revolution, and the revolutionary processes begun in Nicaragua and Grenada in 1979.
The overthrow of the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979 was also a serious threat to US imperialism's hold on the strategic oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Under President Ronald Reagan, who came to power in 1980, the US ruling class launched a counter-attack against what it dishonestly dubbed ``Soviet expansionism''. Washington massively funded and armed counter-revolutionary bandits and terrorists, such as RENAMO in Mozambique, UNITA in Angola, the contras in Nicaragua and the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. Reagan also boosted US support to the apartheid regime in South Africa and dictatorial regimes like those in Pakistan, Indonesia and Chile.
However, Reagan's strategy was also specifically engineered to avoid putting US troops in harm's way. When Reagan ordered US troops to invade Grenada in 1983 (and when George Bush senior ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989), the operation relied on massive firepower before elite US troops entered and then left as quickly as possible.
However, Reagan massively boosted US war spending across the board, including on the ``star wars'' missile defence system. The goal of this fanciful project was to achieve the ability to launch a first-strike nuclear attack on the USSR without fear of retaliation. Attempts to match these massive military expenditures played a role in ``bleeding'' the Soviet Union, hastening its collapse.
With the demise of the USSR in 1991, the US rulers hoped that the ``American century'' was again on the horizon. George Bush senior hailed the US victory over Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War as also marking the ``end of the Vietnam syndrome'' and declared that Washington would now oversee a ``New World Order''.
However, he spoke too soon. Bush senior had been not prepared to test the Vietnam syndrome. The US military had relied on the use of its overwhelming air superiority and its massive technological edge to avoid significant ground operations. Fear of the Vietnam syndrome in part deterred Bush from sending US troops into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Throughout the 1990s, this was the pattern of US military operations. The Vietnam syndrome was shown to be alive and kicking with the public outcry in the US to the deaths of 18 soldiers during Washington's ``humanitarian'' intervention in Somalia.
The Bush senior and the Clinton administrations clothed their military actions in the guise of defending human rights, halting ``ethnic cleansing'' or providing humanitarian assistance. They were conducted under the cover of regional or UN ``peacekeeping'' operations and were generally conditional on winning multilateral endorsement.
The American people's hopes that the end of the Cold War would result in much reduced military spending and a ``peace dividend'' also frustrated US ruling class demands for the maintenance of military spending at Cold War levels.
With 9/11, the dominant wing in Bush junior's administration clearly believes the Vietnam syndrome has finally been put to rest.
The claim that the attacks on the WTC ``changed the world'' are part of a myth that is being carefully crafted: that the launch of the ``war on terrorism'' was simply a response to the terrible events of one day.
This myth-making is exemplified by a melodramatic September 5, 2002, article by Associated Press White House correspondent Ron Fournier: ``In a cramped nuclear shelter deep beneath the White House, President Bush stared across a spare wooden table and told his national security team, `Get the troops ready'. Twelve hours after the terrorist strikes, moments after his nationally televised address, Bush was preparing for a war that would transform and define his presidency -- `This is a time for self defence', he told his war council. `This is our time'.''
The truth is more straightforward. In the 12 months following 9/11, Bush junior's administration cynically seized upon and exploited the terror attacks to launch a drive to achieve the US ruling class dream of an ``American century'' or ``New World Order'' -- an unchallenged global US military, political and economic empire.
The power behind the throne of George Bush junior's regime is vice president Dick Cheney and a warmongering team made up of veterans of the Reagan and Bush senior administrations.
Throughout the 1990s, these ``hawks'' organised for their return to power, formulated their programs for unchallenged US hegemony and advocated the unbridled use of US military power through a network of tightly interlocked right-wing ruling-class think-tanks -- the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Victory over Terrorism and the Center for Security Policy. The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal championed their views (and continue to do so).
The lessons of the Bush senior and Clinton administration, the new ``centurions'' constantly claimed, was that US power should not be constrained by attempts to balance US interests with those of its European or other allies. Alliances, international organisations or multilateral treaties must not get in the way of the unfettered exercise of US military or economic power.
Other key planks pushed by the hawks have been unconditional military and political support for Israel -- Washington's key ally in the Middle East -- and implacable opposition to any regimes in that region that could pose a threat to US domination of the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf. As a result, a trademark of the centurions has been extreme hostility towards the regimes in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and even Lebanon, as well as cheering every move made by Tel Aviv to crush the national liberation movement in occupied Palestine.
In 1997, the PNAC was established to promote ``American global leadership''. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld (now US defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (now deputy defence secretary) and Jeb Bush (Bush junior's brother) were signatories to the PNAC's founding ``statement of principle''. It stated bluntly: ``[Conservatives] seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposely promotes American principles abroad; and a national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
``America has a role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.''
The PNAC argued that the US must ``increase defense spending significantly'' and ``modernize our armed forces -- if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today'' ; ``strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values''; ``promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad''; and ``accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles''.
``Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today'', the PNAC conceded. ``But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.''
In September 2000, the PNAC fleshed out its imperial vision with the release of a report, Rebuilding America's defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The project's participants included Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby (who became Cheney's chief of staff) and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol.
The report's introduction noted that the US ``is the world's only superpower, combining preeminent military power, global technological leadership and the world's largest economy... At present the US faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible''. To preserve this ``desirable strategic situation'', the report stated, the US ``requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future''.
The report's authors admitted that they had built upon the 1992 draft of the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), which was prepared for Cheney, who was then US defence secretary in the Bush senior administration, Wolfowitz and Libby.
This document stated bluntly that the US must continue to ``discourage ... advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or ... even aspiring to a larger regional or global role ... [To achieve this, the US] must retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing ... those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which seriously unsettle international relations.''
This was an admission that the massive build-up of US military might in Europe, Asia and the Middle East after 1945 was not simply directed at containing ``Soviet expansionism'', crushing Third World revolutions and controlling natural resources such as Middle Eastern oil -- as vital to US interests as they were. It was also aimed at enmeshing its potential capitalist rivals -- Britain, France, Germany and Japan -- within US-dominated military alliances designed to prevent them developing independent armed forces.
The PNAC report endorsed the DPG's ``blueprint for maintaining US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests... The basic tenets of the DPG, in our judgment, remain sound.''
The PNAC report recommended that the US turn around the 1990s ``decade of defence neglect'' and boost war spending to a minimum of 3.5-3.8% of GDP (up from around 3%) by adding US$15 billion to US$20 billion annually; increase the numbers of active-duty military personnel from 1.4 million to 1.6 million; and ... reposition US forces ... by shifting permanently based forces to southeast Europe [the Balkans] and Southeast Asia [preferably the Philippines and/or Australia], and by changing naval deployment patterns to reflect growing US strategic concerns in East Asia [meaning the `containment' of China and the `defence' of Taiwan]''.
The
report also urged Washington to develop the capability to ``fight and
win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars'' and at the same time
``perform the `constabulary' duties associated with shaping the
security environment in critical regions''; maintain ``nuclear
strategic superiority'' by developing smaller ``bunker-buster'' nuclear
weapons and resuming nuclear testing; develop the ``star wars'' global
``missile defence system''; and ``control the new `international
commons' of space and `cyberspace' and pave the way for the creation of
a new military service -- US Space Forces -- with the mission of space
control.''[!]
As all the above indicates, the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz
cabal had had a long-standing program for the expansion of US hegemony.
What it lacked was the ``trigger'' to implement it or the existence of
a serious enough ``threat'' that would convince the US people to
abandon their desire for a ``peace dividend'' and their opposition to
US war casualties abroad.
Which is why the 9/11 attacks were a godsend for the Bush gang. Washington immediately recognised the opportunity with which it was presented. As Bush junior's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted: ``I really think this period is analogous to 1945 to 1947 in that the events ... started shifting the tectonic plates in international politics. And it's important to try to seize on that and position American interests and institutions before they harden again.''
Since 9/11, Bush's new centurions fast-tracked the implementation of their agenda in case the ``window of opportunity'' closed. They won a massive increases in military spending of US$48 billion, to US$379.3 billion, in 2002-2003. Adding non-Pentagon military spending, mostly by the energy department for the nuclear weapons program, total military spending was US$396.1 billion.
A further US$38 billion was spent on ``homeland defence'' -- mainly for the plethora of US police agencies. Washington has projected that the war budget will steadily increase to more that US$451 billion by 2007, a 30% increase.
Washington has signalled -- with its repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty -- that US military, economic and political power will not be subject to any form of international constraint.
It has been revealed that the US has plans to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states under guise of eliminating the threat of ``weapons of mass destruction''. There have also been reports that US special forces will soon be authorised to kill or capture ``terrorists'' anywhere in the world, whenever the opportunity arises, without having to obtain permission from the relevant government.
As a result of its war to overthrow the Taliban, Washington has secured a permanent military bases and stationed tens of thousands of troops for the first time in the increasingly strategic Central Asian region. From these bases, the US can more easily ``contain'' Russia and China, control the emerging oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea region, strengthen its hold over the Persian Gulf and increase further its military stranglehold on most of the world's vital energy resources.
Using the cover of the ``war on terrorism'', Washington has increased or resumed military funding for notoriously repressive regimes -- including as Yemen, Georgia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Colombia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics -- as well as sending thousands of troops and military advisers to help them crush anti-government movements.
Washington has given the green light for Russia to continue its brutal campaign against the Chechen freedom struggle and the Chinese government's repression of separatists in Xinjiang.
The
September 11 attacks and the subsequent US ``war on terrorism''
presented the US ruling-class warmongers with their biggest opportunity
yet to ``cure'' the Vietnam syndrome.
From Green Left Weekly, September 11, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
* 9/11
* Afghanistan
* history
* Iraq
* US imperialism
* war on terror
Comments
Sun, 09/26/2010 - 16:37 — normd
U.S. Sets "Decapitation of Government" As Early Goal of Combat
National Security Archive Update, September 22, 2010
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001
U.S. Sets "Decapitation of Government" As Early Goal of Combat
Talking
Points for Rumsfeld-Franks Meeting in November 2001 Outline Policy
Makers' Aims for the Conflict and Postwar Rule of Iraq
Declassified
Documents Show Bush Administration Diverting Attention and Resources to
Iraq Less than Two Months after Launch of Afghanistan War
For more information contact: Joyce Battle - 202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
Washington,
DC, September 22, 2010 - Following instructions from President George
W. Bush to develop an updated war plan for Iraq, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld ordered CENTCOM Commander Gen. Tommy Franks in November
2001 to initiate planning for the "decapitation" of the Iraqi government
and the empowerment of a "Provisional Government" to take its place.
Talking
points for the Rumsfeld-Franks meeting on November 27, 2001, released
through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), confirm that policy
makers were already looking for ways to justify invading Iraq - as
indicated by Rumsfeld's first point, "Focus on WMD."
This
document shows that Pentagon policy makers cited early U.S. experience
in Afghanistan to justify planning for Iraq's post-invasion governance
in order to achieve their strategic objectives: "Unlike in Afghanistan,
important to have ideas in advance about who would rule afterwards."
Rumsfeld's
notes were prepared in close consultation with senior DOD officials
Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Among other insights, the materials
posted today by the National Security Archive shed light on the intense
focus on Iraq by high-level Bush administration officials long before
the attacks of 9/11, and Washington's confidence in perception
management as a successful strategy for overcoming public and allied
resistance to its plans.
This compilation further shows:
* The preliminary strategy Rumsfeld imparted to Franks while directing him to develop a new war plan for Iraq
*
Secretary of State Powell's awareness, three days into a new
administration, that Iraq "regime change" would be a principal focus of
the Bush presidency
* Administration determination to exploit
the perceived propaganda value of intercepted aluminum tubes - falsely
identified as nuclear related - before completion of even a preliminary
determination of their end use
* The difficulty of winning
European support for attacking Iraq (except that of British Prime
Minister Tony Blair) without real evidence that Baghdad was implicated
in 9/11
* The State Department's analytical unit observing that a
decision by Tony Blair to join a U.S. war on Iraq "could bring a
radicalization of British Muslims, the great majority of whom opposed
the September 11 attacks but are increasingly restive about what they
see as an anti-Islamic campaign"
* Pentagon interest in the
perception of an Iraq invasion as a "just war" and State Department
insights into the improbability of that outcome
Rumsfeld's
instructions to Franks included the establishment and funding of a
provisional government as a significant element of U.S. invasion
strategy. In the end the Pentagon changed course and instead ruled
post-invasion Iraq directly, first through the short-lived Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and then through Paul Bremer
and the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Today's posting is the
first of a three-part series of electronic briefing books detailing the
run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. This edition covers the critical
first year of George W. Bush's presidency. The following two - featuring
newly available British government documents - will treat the question
of whether the Bush administration ever seriously considered alternative
strategies for Iraq and how the U.S. and Great Britain attempted to
sell the war strategy to the world.
In addition to an analytical
essay and the documents, today's EBB includes two research aids - a
detailed timeline and an illuminating collection of quotations from key
individuals and government documents.
Visit the Archive's Web site for more information about today's posting.
http://www.nsarchive.org
* reply
Thu, 10/21/2010 - 00:38 — Mohammed AL-Saedi (not verified)
Who are the terrorists ?
Who are the terrorists ?
CIA USA ,,, CIA USA ,,, CIA USA, this was the slogan that the
protests were chanting years ago. America is involved countless terror
activities via its criminal espionage agency CIA in additional to
various means thats including puppets regimes. In recent move into same
terror-ism activities, America represent real danger on the world
safety, is propelling another puppet regime of the south Korea into
staging a tension on the region.
"The south Korean military warmongers has been busy with madcap
large-scale air battle ex-ercises with U.S. forces in the air over the
western part of the Korean Peninsula since October 15"
"exercises with the U.S. imperialists right after their provocative
PSI exercises came to a clo-se. This is an intolerable provocation to
the DPRK and a blatant challenge to the desire of the Koreans to see the inter-Korean relations improved and the need of the times."
"The puppet military is spearheading the exercises now under way in
the air over the western part of the Korean Peninsula with combined air
forces of south Korea and the U.S. involved. Herein lies a dangerous
military purpose"
Reference"
US and S. Korean Warmongers' Joint Air Battle Exercises Flayed
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201010/news19/20101019-05ee.html
Renewed American Threats: Building a Pretext to Wage War on North
Korea?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20227
Secrets of the CIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QYZBMIBOck
Secrets of The CIA - Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=803apgVhMDQ
http://links.org.au/node/1238
..............................................................................................................................................
Also of interest,
9/11 After A Decade: Have We Learned Anything?
by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26174
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