Musings, perspectives, rants

The 9/11 attacks were described as “opportunities” by Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and members of the NSC.

A year before 9/11 the Project for a New American Century published a document which argued for increased military spending to ensure “military preeminence”.  The process would be much quicker, it said, if America suffered “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”  Members of the PNAC included Cheney, Armitage, Wolfowitz, Perle and Rumsfeld.  On 9/11 itself Bush wrote "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today."

The PNAC document also included strategies for dominating space and preventing access to other nations.  Its Vision for 2020 mission statement is: "US Space Command – dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.”  Its primary purpose to protect US investments abroad.  Such protection will be needed, it says, because the “globalization of the world economy will continue with a widening between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.”  This program involves 3 parts:

Space based surveillance technology (tick)

Putting up space weapons such as lasers which can take out satellites of other countries.

An offensive missile shield.  The purpose of the ‘missile defense shield’ is to prevent other countries from being able to deter the US from launching a first strike against them.

This program is expensive, so in order for Americans to be more accepting of the expense there would have to be a ‘new Pearl Harbor’.

Rumsfeld was also the chairman of the Commission to assess US national security space management and organization.  Its report issued in January 2001 said a ‘space Pearl Harbor – will be the only event able to galvanize the nation and cause the US government to act'.  Rumsfeld used the success of the 9/11 attacks to get more money including for the US Space Command.

These remarkable coincidences were, of course, not mentioned in the Commission Report.

Plans to attack Afghanistan were under way months if not years before September 2001.

The previously (US-)friendly Taliban regime was an obstacle to the construction of the oil pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan in the late 90s.  The Taliban were given one last chance in July 2001 to share power or “we bury you under a carpet of bombs”.  Attacking Afghanistan would also help to establish an American presence in Central Asia (with its vast oil reserves).  Within a month after 9/11 long-term US bases were arranged for Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.  Zbigniew Brzezinski, NSA advisor to Carter, said in a book that this region was key to world power and argued that America, to ensure its continued primacy, must get control of this area.  The problem, he said, was that America “is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad” which limits the use of America’s power, especially “its capacity for military intimidation”.  “Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.”  This can be overcome, he suggests, if there is a “sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being” such as a”truly massive and widely perceived external threat.”

The Commission Report ignores these ‘coincidences’.

Plans to attack Iraq were pushed for well before 9/11 and any reason would be acceptable.  Wolfowitz argued that Saddam should be attacked even if there was a 10% chance that he was involved in 9/11.  But the plan to attack had been in the works ‘for at least a decade’.  Perle and his colleagues recommended in 1996 that Israel adopt a policy of ‘preemption’, advocating that Israel invade Lebanon and then Syria and even included notes which could be used in a speech to justify such action.  Israel should say

“negotiations with repressive regimes like Syria’s require cautious realism…It is dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous of its own people, openly aggressive toward its neighbors… and supportive of the most deadly terrorist organizations.”

These would be used later to justify attacks on Iraq.

In 1997 Rumsfeld, Perle, and other PNAC members urged Clinton to use military force against Saddam to remove him from power and thereby “protect our vital interests in the Gulf”.  Clinton didn’t listen.  In 2000 the PNAC published “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” emphasizing that Saddam was a threat to American interests in the region.  10 of the 18 signers of the letter to Clinton became members of the Bush administration.

Notes of Rumsfeld’s conversations about 9/11 by an aide included the following:

“Judge whether good enough hit SH (Saddam Hussein) at same time.  Not only UBL (Usama Bin Laden)  Go massive. Sweep it all up.  Things related or not.”  It’s clear that anything would be used as a pretext to attacking Iraq and getting rid of Saddam.  The plan was to “replace the Ba’ath regime in Iraq with a pro-American puppet government and build permanent military bases there”.

The PNAC said in its 2000 document:

“The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security.  While the unresolved conflict in 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.”

Don’t expect American withdrawal from Iraq anytime soon, if ever.