Written: 01/14/2003
Published in The People’s Civic Record, a monthly, Wilmington, NC based progressive magazine.
In 1992, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and I. Lewis Libby drafted a report outlining the role the U.S. should play in the 21st Century which was called, “Defense Planning Guidance” It suggested an aggressive, preemptive, and unilateral approach that would “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role” and wanted to make sure that America would maintain dominance in the world “by force if necessary.”
When the draft was leaked, it met with plenty of criticism and was quickly withdrawn and denounced by Bush I, but the ideas it contained did not die with it.
During the Clinton administration, a group of like-minded neoconservative imperialists – funded by right-wing foundations, energy companies, and the military-industrial complex – continued the strategic planning outlined in the report, evolving into a group called, “The Project for a New American Century” (PNAC).
The group’s former and current members and contributors include: Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, Defense Department Head of Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation Stephen Cambone, Vice President’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Pentagon Dov Zakheim, Defense Policy Board Member Eliot Cohen, and Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Richard Perle.
In September 2000, right before the election and one year before the “attack on America,” the PNAC released a report entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” from which Bush’s new National Defense Strategy derives.
“At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals,” the report says, “The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and enhance this ‘American peace.'”
Iran, Iraq and North Korea are identified as potential targets in the same sentence, hence explaining the “Axis of Evil” remarks from Bush. “Past Pentagon wargames have given little or no consideration to the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power,” it says.
It speaks of a “Pax Americana” where we will have to perform “constabulary duties” and act preemptively and unilaterally to obtain our goals. This requires “American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.”
Both the National Defense Strategy and the PNAC report have the stated objective of insuring that no country will ever present a challenge to the United States and both recommend almost exactly the same increase in military spending which has now occurred. This is so we can “fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars.”
The report recommends that the U.S. establish permanent military bases “within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops” in addition to the roughly 130 nations where U.S. troops are already deployed. It refers to our troops as “the cavalry on the new American frontier” and says we need new bases in the Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia.
This helps explain why we have now installed troops in Georgia and the Philippines and why we are sending military “advisers” to Columbia.
The report recommends the repudiation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty, a strong commitment to a global missile defense system (otherwise known as “Star Wars”) and the development of small nuclear warheads “required in targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries.”
The report calls for control of the world’s energy resources and the targeting of Iraq to achieve our goals because “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
The report laments that the climate in America was not such that they could hope to achieve their goals in the near future without “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
The attack on 9-11-01 was just what they were looking for.
These people are now in power, in key positions, with the event they needed to accomplish their goals. They came ready with the blueprints for empire already in hand, and they have been following those blueprints to the letter.
The PNAC report soon became the basis for our new National Security Strategy.
According to CBS News, immediately after 9-11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq and began pushing the intelligence community hard for some link between the attack and Iraq. According to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11, Rumsfeld is quoted as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein) at same time. Not only UBL (Osama bin Laden).” “Go massive,” the notes say, “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”
Though no real evidence was found linking Saddam Hussein with 9-11, six days later, on Sept. 17th – according to senior administration officials – President Bush signed a “TOP SECRET” document outlining the plan for war with Afghanistan and directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.
Lacking hard evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the attack, the Bush administration began effectively conducting a campaign of misinformation, misrepresentation, and dissemination regarding the threat by Iraq to the United States of America.
The CIA’s former head of counter-intelligence Vincent Cannistraro, has said, “Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there’s a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA.”
During the Cuban Missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy presented incontrovertible evidence to the world that missiles had been introduced into Cuba. If Bush has some incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has WMDs, as he claims, why is he unwilling to share that information with anyone, including the weapon’s inspectors?
Based on the evidence, the “war on terrorism” is just a pretext for an imperial “Pax Americana.”
Why should we believe they have any other goals than what they have already self-professed in their report?