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Getting Past 'Oh!': Why Americans Misunderestimate the Depravity of the President They Hate
Most Americans have long ago now reached two conclusions about their government. First, that George W. Bush is an incompetent president with, additionally, a temperament ill-suited to the job. And second, that his grand project - the invasion of Iraq - was a major mistake.
Both these conclusions are absolutely incorrect. But only by omission. They are, in fact, quite accurate as far as they go - it's just that they don't go nearly far enough.
Bush is incompetent and Iraq is likely the greatest foreign policy blunder in two-plus centuries of American history. But to say that - and particularly to say that alone - does not truly do justice to either disaster, Bush or his war. The truth about this president and his motives for war are far, far uglier than the words 'incompetence' or 'mistake' imply.
But getting to that requires of American citizens several attributes which have been, shall we say, in something less than great abundance of late. It requires historical background, factual knowledge, a motivation to understand, and the wisdom that results from the combination of all of these. And it requires a substantial degree of courage to go where the facts lead.
Most Americans lack a large degree of each of these, let alone the requisite combination of all of them. As such, this much reviled president is perceived as 'merely' incompetent and error-prone. Would that he and his actions were actually so benign. It would be a much better world. In fact, they are far more deeply pernicious than Americans are willing to let themselves understand. One way to appreciate the extent of American 'ostriching' is by doing a bit of comparative analysis.
It is a curious and telling fact that Europeans figured out Bush far before his own constituents did. There are two reasons for that. One is that they were less frightened than we were. Not that they're necessarily braver than Americans in general, but they've had more experience of terrorism in the past, and we were just hit badly - they weren't. Americans were therefore a fearful people in 2002 and 2003, looking for leadership and reassurance. But looking, as it would turn out, in all the wrong places.
The other thing is that Europeans have a more mature politics than Americans do - let's just come right out and say it. You can see it in their attitudes toward sexuality, drugs and crime. You can see it in their wholesale rejection of nationalism and religion, humanity's worst mythologies and twin curses, wherever they arise. You can see it in their rejection of the juvenile selfishness that characterizes the American style of raw capitalism and obsessive consumption. And you can see it, especially, in their foreign policies and attitudes toward war. In large part because they so heavily and repeatedly paid the consequences of their own prior immaturity about war, their understanding and approach to it today are far more advanced than that of Americans.
It is not that Europeans are cowards or unreliable allies, as American neoconservatives love to paint them whenever the folks on the other side of the Pond get in the way of the raw exercise of American imperial power. They are neither. What they are, rather, is sober. They understand that war is sometimes a necessary resort, but that it must always be the very last resort, and only ever contemplated when the alternative is considerably more horrible (which is to say, given the horror of war, very rarely indeed). They know this all to well, because they spent centuries living it up close and personal. As someone once remarked, "Europeans know that anything could happen there, because everything has happened there". They have learned through the hard experiences of Flanders and Stalingrad and Normandy and Dresden and Dachau the stakes involved when the public is cavalier or even less than vigilant about holding back the dogs of war. Americans have some sense of this after the twin disasters of Vietnam and Iraq, but both of these were fought elsewhere. And, however ugly they were, by far and away the vast majority of the dying was done by brown people living on other shores. Not pleasant, to be sure, but not catastrophic at home. We have never experienced Berlin, 1945.
Europeans also have a greater sense of history than Americans do - and, sadly, they'd be hard-pressed not to, of course - which gives them a larger wisdom about power and human nature. They understand that the motivations for war by those who make it are not always quite, um, as advertised. National leaders do not usually call upon their people to risk life and limb to advance the glory, wealth and power of those same kings or prime ministers, largely because damn few would. Instead, wars must be packaged as necessary to the preserve the national honor, protect national security, or to bring the benefits of some political system or religion to other people. Well before Europeans managed to stop fighting each other they were gaining an understanding of this principle. Not for nothing has war long been referred to as the 'sport of kings' on the continent. And, as it turns out, people are generally not terribly interested in risking their lives, their health, their property, their families, their communities and their sanity so that a handful of elites can have a rollicking good time and maybe score some booty in the process.
Ironically, Americans have a rather similar database on which to draw. I'd be surprised if more than five or ten percent of Americans would agree with the proposition that any prior president ever lied the country into a foreign war (though perhaps the number would be higher in the present context than it was before 2003). Indeed, I'd be surprised if that many could even name the major foreign wars in the country's history. Those wars include the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and the present wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of these nine, at least four - or nearly half - and possibly more involved known egregious lies on the part of the administrations conducting them. And what is revealed when such lies are peeled away is that there was absolutely nothing necessary about these wars whatsoever.
For example, the deceits that were used to justify the invasion of Mexico and the theft of about one-third of its territory were so great that at least one congressman was motivated to denounce President Polk for conducting "the sheerest deception" in lying to the Congress and the country about the war. Perhaps you've heard of this fellow before. Congressman Abraham Lincoln went on to bemoan the "fact that the United States Army, in marching to the Rio Grande, marched into a peaceful Mexican settlement, and frightened the inhabitants away from their homes and their growing crops". He further accused the president of fighting an unnecessary war and of violating the Constitution in doing so, though he nevertheless also voted to supply the Army during the war (why does that ring familiar?).
The Spanish-American War was likely another instance of trumped up war. After multiple investigations over the last century, it is still unclear whether the USS Maine sunk as a result of a mine or an accidental internal explosion, and that lack of clarity alone should have been enough to prevent the war. What is completely clear, however, is that appetent imperialists and yellow journalists were hungry for the war, so much so that they succeeded in bringing it about, including ugly extended fighting in the Philippines against the anti-colonialist guerillas whom the Americans were supposed to be there liberating. Indeed, so great was the manufactured pressure for war that President McKinley, who didn't want to fight it, was ultimately forced to do so.
Then there's Vietnam, the lies surrounding which could fill a library. Here, we have documentary evidence beyond question of these fabrications, supplied via the bravery of Daniel Ellsberg and his colleagues. They risked their freedom and very lives to prove the degree to which the government was lying to the American public and Congress about its involvement in Nam, its involvement in surrounding countries, and its knowledge that the war was hopeless even while it was saying just the opposite. Oh, and did I mention how it was the US government, not the evil communists, who walked out on a previously-negotiated international agreement to allow Vietnam to decide its own fate by ballots, not bullets, simply because it was clear that the American proxies would lose the vote? Or that the American government green-lighted the coup that resulted in the assassination of the President of South Vietnam, the country where we were fighting to preserve 'democracy'? Or the Gulf of Tonkin 'incident' - far weaker a casus belli than even the sinking of the Maine - that gave the pretext for the major escalation of the war? Hey, we're just warming up here. As McGeorge Bundy said, "Pleikus are streetcars". If you wait long enough, one will come along, and you can therefore use such an incident to justify your bombing escalation, your war, or whatever you want to do.
As for the Gulf War, it seems quite probable that Bush the Elder (good lord, how do people from this reprobate family keep becoming president?) had his ambassador, April Glaspie, give Saddam a go-ahead to invade Kuwait, especially given that Saddam produced a tape recording of the conversation which has her saying just that. Of course, the Bush folks just claimed that Saddam had doctored the tape, and there went that. We do know for sure that evidence presented to the public and Congress about Saddam's atrocities was bogus, even though the dictator had surely committed many such crimes in reality. But the big lie about the Gulf War was the unspoken assumption that the United States was continuing its role as the friend of peace, freedom and democracy, fighting Saddam's nasty aggressive dictatorship. In reality, we had helped create Saddam, we had been silent if not complicit when he was committing his worst atrocities, and after the war we stood by and watched as he annihilated his own people whom we'd set up like so many human bowling pins. Most importantly, though, when he had invaded a neighboring country one decade before he committed the unforgivable sin of attacking Kuwait, the US government had actually encouraged him in that effort, armed him, and supplied him with satellite and other intelligence data. That resulted in the Iraq-Iran War, one of the most brutal of the late-twentieth century. To go to war in 1990/91, therefore, out of moral indignation at the invasion of Kuwait, was a massive hypocritical lie.
Go figure, eh? Just as shocking is the fact that everything about the present war in Iraq has been a lie, as well. We know that Bush planned to invade for domestic (let alone personal psychological) purposes well before he was even president, let alone before 9/11. We know that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. We know that the administration knew that Saddam was no threat. We know that they lied repeatedly and egregiously about the evidence that he was. We know that they lie like flea-ridden dogs to this day when they continually claim to be supporting the troops, but still can't even get them sufficient armor. And on and on and on.
But absent a knowledge of this historical record, and absent sufficient courage to grapple with its implications, and absent the facts and costs of the current war in daily life, and absent a motivation to understand these things, Americans continue to vaguely disapprove of the war and the president who bequeathed it to us. That is well, proper and necessary, but hardly sufficient.
This was not a 'mistake' made by an 'incompetent' president. It was those things, to be sure, but leaving it at that would be like describing 9/11 in the history books as an airplane crash. This was a king sporting. This was a war trumped up with zero necessity. This was a war of power and profit. This was a war of immense deceits. This is a disastrous war of epic proportions.
My guess is that Americans simply can't go there, just as many can't possibly entertain the thought that 9/11 might have been done by their government, or at least perhaps allowed to happen. People can imagine that the war was a mistake, but not that they are such pathetic pawns of their own government that their lives and the lives of American military personnel are of zero consequence to political elites. Or that those daddy-figures upon whom they rely for their precarious sense of security could in fact be vicious predators readily able to betray, ruin and destroy their own public for purposes of financial or power enrichment.
This is just too much for the psyche to handle. This is something that happens in banana republics, or history books, right? - not in contemporary democratic America. And certainly not by those super-patriots of the Republican right, the ones who are so eternally vigilant about keeping us safe.
To truly understand the magnitude of what is at stake here, one has to resort to the greatest of violations of trust of which the human animal is capable, such as the molestations of daughters by their fathers, or of little boys by their priests, or the betrayal of comrades during wartime. Such sickening transgressions are often too heinous to even contemplate, frequently blowing the psychological circuits of anyone subjected to them.
Sometimes the choice is between denial or death.
And so it is that Americans continue through their day, oblivious - by self design - to the magnitude of the evil that has been visited upon them.
But, ironically, this is not remedy at all. Obliviousness to victimization by government is no excuse, especially in a democracy, and especially when other innocent people are much greater victims, to the tune of about a million in number.
To a very large extent, those who would ignore the crimes committed in their name - crimes they have the power to stop - become criminals themselves.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net
114 Comments so far
Show AllThanks, David Michael Green. So now I'm a criminal too.
By the way, what is your solution to this mess? Some of us don't want to remain criminals in your eyes.
Skeezyks, you sound like part of the problem to me. You read this very articulate and inspiring article, and the first thing you think when you finish it is some selfish defensive thoughts about being offended at him implicating all of us for what our country has become?
I for one thought that this article was awesome. The only thing I would add is that people in Europe have a better understanding of what is happening to our country than we do because they are outside of the direct influence of our propagandist media.
Good article! Sad but true.
When the drums called for war after 9/11 I was old and strong enough to resist, but I remember - though being aware of the hypocrisy of America's relationship with Saddam Hussein - I still couldn't help wanting to support the moral justification of liberating an occupied country. It took the never much honoured news that American tanks making there way up North into Iraq simply bulldozered fifty thousand Iraqi troops under ten feet of desert sand to fully grasp what humanitarian ideals mean to American leadership.
"My guess is that Americans simply can't go there, just as many can't possibly entertain the thought that 9/11 might have been done by their government, or at least perhaps allowed to happen"
i.e. "We need a new Pearl Harbor"
Seems pretty damn obvious to me. What is a couple buildings(the owner made out like a bandit, BTW) and a few thousand civilians on 911 to these guys?
They have blithly murdered several hundred thousand civilians since without any twinge to their collective concience.
Unfortunately, I think Iraq War is on the verge of being a smashing success.
I have always believed the best historical analogy for Iraq has always been the US's Philipines conquest and colonization - although I had dearly hoped an efective Iraqi resistance would have led to a different outcome. But it hasn't. It's parliament now has a generous number of Emilio Alginaldos - Maliki being the biggest one.
Oil law or not, big oil companies are negotiating contracts with various local coopertive political leaders left and right.
It's resistance is on it's last legs - fractured, sectarian, ineffective, or led by fanatics that few Iraqi's support.
The "greatest material prize in history" - "the stupendous source of strategic power" is in the US empire's grasp. And the millions of Iraqi lives expended over the past two decades were utterly inconsequential in pursuit of this objective. Their suffering, like the suffering of many millions of others ground under the wheels of US imperialism, will be forgotten.
The bad guys have won again...
I cannot disagree with a single item in this essay...even the conclusion that we, as Americans, are complicit in the crimes being committed in our name; for that matter, the past crimes committed in our name to which we turned our backs. It's a sad commentary, indeed. If there is an American out there who can deny this indictment, I would surely be interested in their rationale. Ignorance? Not in today's age of information! Some may be able to plead "stupidity", but for the truly "stupid", their guilt or innocence would make little difference to their self worth. Naivete? Possibly. But, again, those numbers would not amount to many in a population of 300 million. Subtract another 75-80 million who are too young to really understand the real way this government works and the corruption that is rampant, out of control and runs deeper than ANYONE actually knows. That still leaves us with 200 million Americans that have little or no excuse for allowing this government to commit blatant and endless crimes in OUR name from the very beginning of this United States. We all have no choice, but to deal with the guilt and shame of those slaughtered and conquered in our name.
And when it all collapses, blame that person you look at in the mirror. We all had our chances. Now, I fear it's far too convoluted and much too late.
Too true. Back in 2002 I was discussing the impending invasion with my Mormon inlaws, and how Bush and Co. were manipulating the intel to provide the excuse for war. Their response was "I just don't believe he would do that". They probably still don't believe it.
Once they get into their heads that a person is on God's side, he's incapable of doing wrong. Unless he gets an extramarital BJ.
So really, Bush is quite a brilliant guy. But how did his mommy bring him up without a conscience? It boggles the mind. Now, those of you that missed it, read Sean Penn's article above and decide who to vote for.
"Or that those daddy-figures upon whom they rely for their precarious sense of security could in fact be vicious predators readily able to betray, ruin and destroy their own public for purposes of financial or power enrichment."
These 'daddy-figures' are the very dregs of a weakening gene-pool populated by inbred Yankee scum. Rats who have turned and begun to devour the honorable children of the Nation that provides them the security to live above their true place.
This is a great article, but I would point out that a majority of American voters rejected Bush in 2000 -- Al Gore won the popular vote -- and it was only through the gaming of our archaic and stupid electoral college system, Jeb Bush as governor of Florida (and Katherine Harris, of course), Republican-turned-Democrat Theresa LePore's intentionally confusing butterfly ballot, and five members of the Supreme Court who ignored the Constitution that Junior ever snuck into office in the first place. So, a majority was not fooled by the Little King.
In 2004, in Florida, New Mexico and other states, voting irregularities took place as well, with Bush somehow winning votes in areas that were previously solidly Democratic, 'caging' lists, and computerized voting machines mysteriously flipping votes to Bush from Kerry. Of course, Ohio had its own Kathy Harris in the form of Republican Sec. of State Kent Blackwell who committed election fraud on grand scale. (All of this has been thoroughly reported on and documented by Greg Palast. http://www.gregpalast.com)
Naomi Klein has brilliantly analyzed what BushCo has been doing in Iraq in "Disaster Capitalism" (check the Common Dreams archives) -- they don't want the war to end, nor for there to be a stable government in Iraq -- Bush and Cheney's cronies are making a fortune from the supposedly 'inept' disaster over there. (If you need proof of this, you need look no further than the unaccounted-for billions that have 'gone missing' and the millions of barrels in unmetered oil that has been pumped out of Iraq since 2003.) In short -- they are creating a catastrophe on purpose and they couldn't give a damn how many Americans or Iraqis die for their profit margin.
Until Americans face this, we'll never change the corruption underpinning our government, but the Dems, except for Kucinich and, to a lesser degree Edwards and Obama, hardly mention it, yet it is the crux to reclaiming our country and our reputation in the world.
What can one do about the sport of kings? A number of things, first do not participate. Passive resistance works quite well. If and when forced by the draft to go along, be the fuck up who can't march, can't shoot strait, doesn't know left from right.
Emulate the rich when it comes time for taxes to be paid, that is make sure you have not earned enough to pay them, or that your 'losses' outweigh your 'profits.'
Voice the Republican refrain when it comes to war that you would have loved to help, but that other priorities kept you out of the military when young, and you're far too old now to help out.
If the Nuremburg standards were applied to Bu$h/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/Murdoch/etc, there is no question that some of them would hang and the rest would face long prison terms. I am not in favor of the death penalty, so I would prefer to incarcerate them for the rest of their lives. Let them watch tv and maybe do fingerpainting and other harmless arts and crafts. Treat them humanely but don't ever let them out. The pathological personalities that have been running our government since before Nixon need to be purged. And all the secrets need to come out. Glasnost, openness, maybe a truth and reconciliation commission. Who killed the Kennedys? Who killed MLK? Who really has been running the government?
"To truly understand the magnitude of what is at stake here, one has to resort to the greatest of violations of trust of which the human animal is capable, such as the molestations of daughters by their fathers,..."
An otherwise terrific article marred by this unfortunate bigotry. Mothers, too, molest and murder their own children in horrifying numbers--why single out fathers?
Thank you David Michael Green. This is an excellent article. I sent it to my ex who drives me crazy claiming bUSH is merely incompetent, and can thus be shrugged off. No, it's the plan, it's not incompetence!! Of course, like most Americans, he probably won't read it. How do I get through to someone who can laugh off policies that have killed, maimed and left homeless millions?
This article is very thought provoking. I also think that some of the statements made need to be looked at.
Number one, is Bush really incompetent? If you believe that peace and prosperity and freedom are a major objective for the US government, than yes, Bush is incompetent. But those are not his objectives. Has he been competent in reaching the objectives that he sees for the US government been achieved? I'd have to answer "yes".
Number two, was Iraq a "mistake" for Bush? Probably not. He's got exactly what he and the neocons had planned for. It wasn't the "slam dunk" the had envisioned, but all is not lost from their point of view. It's just taking longer than expected.
Number three, are we, as Americans equally guilty? Yes, but in MHO for somewhat different reasons. Most Americans have never been able to face honestly the genocide of the American indians that this country is built on. We, as Americans, have never really taken responsibility for the death and destruction done to the freed slaves after the Civil War. We, as Americans, have never accepted the oppression and death that we have caused around the world by our consumerism and search for ever lower prices at the expense of other human beings. We, as Americans, have never questioned our "exceptionalism". And this one is the key concept that got us into the morass we are in today.
To accept that Americans (white, male, hetrosexual ones anyway) are better, more moral, more deserving, or have more value than other peoples is where the evil lies. Until Americans accept and act on equal human rights for all, in all of its permutations, nothing will change. Until we totally reject war as a means to an end (usually somebody elses resources), we are doomed.
Is it too late to fix this mess? Probably. Will we as Americans or the rest of humanity survive what our actions have wrought? Maybe. Will the survivors finally learn from this holocaust? Who knows.......
The scope of events surrounding the Iraq War does indeed boggle the moral sensibilities and mind, but acknowledging the "crackpot realism" of the neo-cons behind the Project for a New American Century and their surrogate president is just the tip of the iceberg. The plan envisualized the future through the prism of the struggle for resources throughout the world and the need for America to project military presence anywhere, and indeed everywhere at once in the world if need be, to maintain control over those resources. The essential resource needed for America to meet this vision was oil and so a large and permanent presence in the Persian Gulf was the central point of the entire undertaking.
To enlist the support of the American public in this task, the neo-cons opted for the cover rhetoric of spreading democracy in the Middle East. Rather than looking to the solution of a unified, secular, democratic Palestine, however (which would be the obvious choice for a beacon by example, if one were really contemplated), PNAC considered the potential for overthrowing the governments of Iran, Syria, and Iraq, finally selecting the last as being the most achievable. They were well aware that the American public would not support this effort, however, absent the catalyst of "a new Pearl Harbor."
When PNAC drafted its proposal, the American military presence in the Persian Gulf was established in Saudi Arabia, and it was that presence which motivated the 9/11 hijackers, most of whom were from Saudi Arabia. The American troops were perceived by the Arab people as an adjunct to the secret police of the Saud family (a role played, paradoxically, by the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect), and seen by other Muslim fundamentalists as an intolerable defilement of the holy land. Our troops in Saudi Arabia were withdrawn at the commencement of the current war in Iraq, but the contemplated permanent station of American troops within the embassy compound in Baghdad is likely to have the same effect. (This scheme is supported by all the aspiring presidential candidates, except for Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, virtually guaranteeing more blowback terror in the future.)
Coming into office with the announced intention of waging war on Iraq, but needing "a new Pearl Harbor" to achieve that, the Bush administration was in the position of a person who has published a manifesto proclaiming that he has discovered a means of benefitting from a car accident. If such a person subsequently has a car accident, nobody would infer that it was really an accident since all that is needed to have it is to close one's eyes. Despite warnings from the departing Clinton administration that terrorism was the greatest threat facing the nation, the Bush administration dismissed the idea insisting that "drugs" was the greatest problem. Questions about terrorism from the press were routinely referred to Vice President Cheney, who did not hold his first meeting on the subject until September 4, 2001. Apparently the only outcome of that meeting was to appoint Michael Brown to the assistant directorship of FEMA; he took office two days later, displacing an experienced PhD from the previous administration.
Elevating the nature of the attack from criminal terrorism to full-fledged act of war, the WTC buildings were indeed collapsed by controlled demolition, as inferred by both Dan Rather and Ted Koppel, but it was not necessarily accomplished as a bit of stagecraft requiring specific foreknowledge of the attack. It was conducted under the auspices of a secret FEMA program called Godzilla that affects other buildings in the US and throughout the world.
The Godzilla story begins in January 1995 with the Kobe earthquake tragedy. The damage inflicted upon the city was unprecedented in its severity. Many buildings slumped precipitously, threatening surrounding property. Some buildings had been uprooted from their foundations and thrown down intact into intersections. Insurance companies took a bath and the extent of damages triggered payouts from international reinsurance carriers. The risk became a matter of serious concern to globalized insurance corporations.
Actuaries calculated scenarios in which a similar quake could hit a major city, toppling its tallest structures onto surrounding property – property more valuable than the skyscraper itself. Buildings could also sag, looming over more valuable properties, and collapse before any action could be taken to protect surrounding property from collateral damage. Terrorism of course could also create these conditions as had been attempted on the World Trade Center in 1993.
The large insurance companies presented these concerns to FEMA, who spent about a year studying the matter and searching for solutions. The result was a secret program called Godzilla. This program is in part a secret building code by the terms of which structures deemed of concern must submit a plan for demolition that FEMA keeps on file. Planned buildings over a certain height must submit a demolition plan along with a construction plan and the construction plan must include facilities and features within the structure and machinery for the potential installation of demolition explosives.
Within the demolition option widely known to the emergency worker sector under FEMA, there is a more secret designation for demolition on demand based on a rating system comparing risk and surrounding property values. Of course, the World Trade Center towers topped the list for the demolition on demand rating and its "charged" status was installed. Intelligence work in terrorist cells have identified other targets that are likely to have received this designation: Coit Tower in San Francisco and Sears Tower in Chicago, for instance, however, most major cities have landmark structures that are likely to have received this rating. Buildings with this designation have demolition explosives already situated inside them.
Other buildings are still of concern, of course, and to deal with these under emergency conditions, the various FEMA headquarters nationwide maintain stockpiles of demolition explosive that can be deployed within hours. Installing the Godzilla emergency system and protocol was fairly expensive, but the bulk of its cost was in 1997 when it went on-line. Much of the expense, the drafting of demolition plans, was borne by building owners. Continuing costs arise for FEMA in the quality testing of stockpiled demolition explosives and the off-line check and recycling of installed demolition devices in the high risk structures.
Successful implementation and demonstration within the US created pressure for other nations to follow suit, especially as urged by the global reinsurance industry. The penalty for non-compliance would come in the form of dramatically increased insurance rates because although Kobe and 9/11 events are rare, they are very costly when they occur.
Of course when the Clinton administration installed Godzilla, it was universally conceived as a tool to be used to promote public safety. No one imagined that it would be used for the blatantly partisan ploy of creating "a new Pearl Harbor," as it was by the Bush administration. Demolition of the towers could have taken place that afternoon or the next day and none would have questioned the wisdom of the action since the extent of damages exceeded the values of the structures. Both towers were razed, however, just as the smoke issuing from them changed from black to white, indicating that the fires were burning themselves out and the window of opportunity to cast the blame for their collapse onto the impacts was closing. That this decision negatively impacted public safety was no concern of the decision makers.
FEMA headquarters for the World Trade Center complex was in the Salomon Brothers building, WTC 7, which was demolished later that day after the materials had been brought to the site and distributed inside. This prevented discovery of documents and receipts relating to Godzilla and the installation of demolition devices inside the WTC towers. Three secret service agents died in the collapse of WTC 7 protecting the security of communications equipment and files of the CIA, the FBI and FEMA.
The Godzilla protocol cannot be implemented by just any fire chief, however, FEMA executive authority is required and their authority must be issued under a variety of emergency scenarios by the President and the White House. On September 11, President Bush, once he finally decided to respond to the crisis, issued a blanket approval to Vice President Cheney in the situation room at the undisclosed location. The decision to implement Godzilla at the time when it was done was a joint decision involving Vice President Cheney, acting with the authority of President Bush, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, then acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, then director of FEMA Joseph Allbaugh, then assistant director of FEMA Michael Brown, the director of FEMA Region II (name unknown), New York Governor George Pataki, then mayor of New York City Rudy Guiliani, the director of the New York Port Authority (name unknown) owner of record, and the then current lease holder, Larry Silverstein.
It seems Mr. Silverstein has been unable to collect insurance for the events of 9/11 because the government was in violation of its agreement with the insurance carriers to implement the plan in such a way as to diminish claims. It would seem that the government was aware all along of this problem and was silently sponsoring the New York Port Authority in its search for a leaseholder, when in fact it had no need of a financial angel. The search for a leaseholder was purely for the purpose of taking the punch of the attack on the buildings.
Because FEMA already knew the cause of the collapse of the buildings, it only called for a volunteer forensics team – and then brushed aside the objections of its engineers to issue a cursory, speculative report on the cause: a complete abdication of its responsiblities towards architectural engineering and the public. It did, however, have secret investigators posing as medical teams combing the building débris for unexploded devices to report on the success of this emergency management measure.
Just remember: This catastrophe would have been avoided if not for the archaic Electoral College, which gave the Prize to the loser, and Ralph Nader's ego.
i agree that europe is right in throwing off the horrible yoke of religion. i can see his point in saying those who ignore the crimes committed in their name and still continue to support the criminals wind up being one themselves. those who still support these criminals are indeed grossly immoral
I agree with David Michael Green's analysis of the attitude of the United States towards war, but take exception to his touting of European superior sophistication and moderation in this regard.
We need to keep in mind that for the last 62 years the continent has been the benificiary of hundreds of thousands of american military personnel backed up by hundreds of billions of dollars to insure their domestic tranquility and political stability.
Except for France (and that primarily because of the xenophobic hubris of Charles DeGaulle) none of sophisticated Europe has demanded the removal of the American forces stationed on their soil. Why should they?--Besides being relieved of the considerable expense for their own collective national defenses, they are also the recipients of considerable economic stimulus from the spending of those military personnel while stationed there.
Noteworthy also is Europe's inability (and apparent disinterst) in doing anything about the chaos in their own back yards. Whether it was Yugodslavian ethnic cleansing, Middle East based terrorism, or repeated attempts to isolate and absorb Berlin by the Soviet backed communist forces, Europe was quite happy to let America do its dirty work. As an elderly NCO once told me back in the 60's when we both were on active duty, "There'll always be an England, as long as there's Fort Knox".
Thanks to DMG for bringing up what's never discussed in the American press, that is, the million-plus Iraqi deaths as a result of the war. Allow me to add to the indictment the misery of over four million displaced. Is it any wonder we have trouble confronting the overwhelming criminality of the leaders we've elected, and our own complicity.
An ethical American population would be boycotting work, tax-paying, bill-paying, retail activity ... in short, would be bring ITSELF to its knees in a sure-fire strategy to end the war and take back control of its politics and policy.
Wow. Such and excellent piece ... until you threw it all away with this nonsense:
"My guess is that Americans simply can't go there, just as many can't possibly entertain the thought that 9/11 might have been done by their government, or at least perhaps allowed to happen."
The US Gov't did 9/11? You just qualified for a tin foil hat. (Don't worry; one size fits all.)
Evidence please?
Who hatched this plot? Who was aware of this alleged plot? The moron that sat stupified for 7 minutes in the Florida classroom?
which gave the Prize to the loser, and Ralph Nader's ego....
Yeah, sure, but his ego is nothing compared to the disgusting big egos of people like Gandhi, MLK, Thomas Jefferson, Susan B. Anthony... or Nelson Mandela, Irish heroes like Collins or DeValera... Timorese heros Xanana gusmao and Jose ramos-Horta, or Bolivia's evo Morales... big ego's all!
And, how about that Cindy Sheehan - she wants to run against a democrat for congress - what an egotist!
Poet, for most of the last 62 years European countries couldn't afford to maintain large armies. They were paying off the loans taken out to pay for WWI and WWII. Not to mention trying to rebuild industries, infrastructures and replant their really small forests. How many civilians in the usa died during those two wars, and how many European civies died. I don't think it's the death of soldiers that made people question the value of militarism and nationalism, it was the large number of women and children who died that accomplished that. The us civil war was small beer compared to those two wars. The result for the civil war and the two world wars on the usa was that you went from a backwater nation to the strongest country on the planet. For Europe it was the opposite, each of the major european powers lost their empires, their influence on world affairs and their fortunes. They went from nations that had it all, or almost all, to having nothing but stone monuments to the dead.
I do agree with you that the usa has been funding the security of Europe and did so to oppose a commie takeover of the continant. I'm not sure why you're bitter about the one success story for us foreign policy.
Outstanding analysis. I agree that Americans are "immature" in a historical and political sense, ignorant even of their own history. I'm often so disgusted with Americans for their simplistic, nationalistic view of things. Their unsophistication, ignorance, and immaturity explains why they are so easily manipulated with blatant lies. I also agree that acknowledging the true psychopathic nature of our present leadership is too troubling for the vast majority, so they refuse to consider it, preferring to bury their heads in the sand. Americans, perhaps more than any other culture, have literally been brainwashed since birth to believe in their government, right or wrong. (I vividly recall all the efforts to brainwash me from childhood. Fortunately, they didn't "take.")
"Sometimes the choice is between denial or death." What a succinct and accurate explanation for Americans' apparent willingness to tune out reality. I once found the real world immensely troubling. Today I'm so inured to the way the world really works that Bush's behavior doesn't surprise me in the least. Nor does it cause me much anxiety. I've come to recognize that there's nothing I can do to change the situation. The only rational course of action is to focus on self preservation, selfish as that sounds. And I have sought to do just that.
One mistake "progressives" continually make is thinking that collective action can change the situation. Only if a huge – and I mean huge – percentage of humanity rises up against the establishment, perhaps violently, can real change occur. The tiny percentage of humanity that calls itself progressive can wail at the top of its collective lungs all it wants and nothing will change. The other thing that may produce positive change, ironically, is economic collapse brought on by the finite limitations of our planet. Peak oil may ultimately turn out to be a blessing by forcing humanity to live more within its physical limits and rediscover the pleasure of local community over cheap globally produced goods.
I think you ignore one of the principal reasons for invading Iraq: oil. In this age of peak oil, control of the stuff is vital.
Dave Eriqat
Thanks to DM Green for a great piece.
America, land of the free and home of the brave? LOLLLLLL
That could only be true IF and ONLY IF:
cowardice WAS bravery, and
freedom WAS slavery, and even then ONLY IF
ignorance WAS wisdom.
LOlllllllllllllll
lzcrmc ,
Maybe that 'moron' sat stupefied in that Fla classroom because he was playing at being the fool. He's quite skilled at it you know. He's been in character for most all of his life. Have you never seen the video of him in the Oval Office mockingly searching for the WMDs? It was hilarious, wasn't it! Yeah, hilarious if you're a psychopath like gw and his ilk. And that btw is only one example of the mountains of available evidence of that clowns psychopathy, morbidity, and more.
Alas...Green is correct, and you lzcrmc seem to be in denial. Tin foil? LOl
Don't worry lzcrms. As regards *denial*, One size fits all too ;)
-------------
And for those Americans who feel personally offended or implicated by what Green said here:
"To a very large extent, those who would ignore the crimes committed in their name - crimes they have the power to stop - become criminals themselves."
all I can say to y'all is stay away from mirrors. You know who you are! LOLLLLL
Dave Eriqat,
great post! Thanks.
Instead of "Give me liberty or give me death", maybe the rallying cry of Americans should be "Give me denial or give me death!" That would be much more honest, more accurate, much more indicative of reality, as it stands.
Imo, only until there is a worldwide moral awakening --- not only in America btw, though it is desperately needed there too -- will postive, progressive change become possible. We (all) have not even begun to become fully human. Not even close. Not yet. And when/if that occurs, then we can begin to progress. First comes the moral awakening....then comes the steps towards good change....
Stupid humans...
One day... ;)
lzcrmc: Before you start attacking people for questioning the facts about 9/11, do some research and you will see that although there is no hard evidence that points to 9/11 as an inside job, there are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the events of 9/11. And the Bush administration has done everything it can to make sure those questions are never answered. Why? All of the conspiracy "nuts" as you call them would be shut up if the facts would be made avail.
For example, there are a number of questions relating to the plane that crashed in the pentagon. The turn that the plane supposedly made to hit the building was nearly impossible for a plane of that size to do. An ex-airforce pilot said that he wasn't sure if he could. And this was supposedly amateur pilots?
There were a number of gas stations in the area that supossedly have video camera evidence of the plane hitting the pentagon. Those video tapes have yet to be released to the public. Why? Why not shut up the conspiracy theorists by proving the original story correct with video evidence.
I'm not saying that I believe all the consipiracies around 9/11, I just think that something smells fishy, but the administration is denying that fish even exist.
I agree with Dave Eriqat,
I've spent so much energy and emotional wellness complaining and worrying about things that I cannot change. I want serious change in this country, but I also worry that it has gone to far. Too few people have too much power, coporations that are evil are also so entrenched in this country that the only real path to change is going to take a complete breakdown of the system we currently have, and when that happens, things are going to be really bad for a while.
So I guess the only thing to do is pick an issue your really passionate about, work on that issue, and other than that, just make sure your self-sustainable, so when the shit hits the fan, you can take care of yourself, because the government is not going to be there for you.
Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job
Man who blew the whistle on Gladio tells Italy's largest newspaper attacks were run by CIA, Mossad
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/cossiga_ex_italian_pres_intel_agencies_know_911_inside_job.htm
Thank you, Class Act, for a very informative post on the Godzilla project. I learned much from it. If some of you skipped over it as it was so long, maybe now would be a good time to read it.
Especially that guy who claims no one can prove 911 was an inside job.
(sigh)
Sigh...[strike-that, sounds overmuch like Gore...!]
'No', Bush is NOT 'incompetent' (you are not paying-attention if you think otherwise).
Furthermore, Bush does NOT think he will be "better judged by History". He knows that this is 'so' (not that I envy him his sorry-'role').
Of course 'something smells in Denmark'. Don't worry so much about it all -- do you REALLY think that in the course of two-or-three decades, the entire world had somehow 'gone quite-mad'?
It didn't... It went 'sane' (if 'inhumane/indirect').
Go eat...play with your kids awhile. Relax...
Glad this piece clears up the incompetent and mistake bullshit that the media has defined the bush administration, all too frequently. The facts speak for themselves, although bush may plead the insanity incompetent deal when he is finally charged as he has probably already preplanned as his defense. Perhaps his memory will fail him conveniently, as it has worked so well for his buddies. To the citizens of the US, I urge you not to let your memory fail the truth of your country's government policies and officials.
Why does he mince words? Why doesn't he just come out and say what he means? (Just kidding) I think that it is long past due that we apologize to the Mexicans and realign our borders so that they get Texas back. Texas has given us such noteables as Lyndon Johnson, Lee Harvey Oswald and King George II. If the Mexicans don't want it back let's give it to the Palestinians for a homeland.
"But getting to that requires of American citizens several attributes which have been, shall we say, in something less than great abundance of late. It requires historical background, factual knowledge, a motivation to understand, and the wisdom that results from the combination of all of these. And it requires a substantial degree of courage to go where the facts lead."
Lotsa luck. You're talking about a bunch of phallus-worshipping, bible-thumping, flag-sucking provincials.
O, forget it. . . .
"As for the Gulf War, it seems quite probable that Bush the Elder (good lord, how do people from this reprobate family keep becoming president?) had his ambassador, April Glaspie, give Saddam a go-ahead to invade Kuwait, especially given that Saddam produced a tape recording of the conversation which has her saying just that. Of course, the Bush folks just claimed that Saddam had doctored the tape, and there went that."
It's not an audio tape. It's a video and Glaspie quite clearly greenlights Saddam's proposed invasion of Kuwait.
Skippyagogo41--(great name--are you a Brit?)
You wrote:
I do agree with you that the usa has been funding the security of Europe and did so to oppose a commie takeover of the continant. I'm not sure why you're bitter about the one success story for us foreign policy.
*************
I agree with you qabout Europe being an example of US foreign policy success and I am not bitter over the fact. My grandfather and my father both fought in WW1 and WWII and the fact that there has not been a WWIII (not yet anyway) certainly speaks well for US postwar foreign policy.
The only thing that wrankles me was David Michael Green's assertion that somehow Europeans are more sophisticated and superior in their political acumen than Americans. The comparison is invalid because it is in effect comparing apples to oranges.
Europe (despite the EU) is nowhere equivalent to the US either in its unity of purpose or ability to project power. It is quite content (and this may be its greatest wisdom) to let America protect it and I doubt that will ever change until there is economic collapse and their small ones cry out for hunger.
Then you will see political crazies come out of the European wood work like so many nocturnal insect pests and the moribund Roamn Catholic Church (who hold the patents on both "Crusades" and "Inqyuisitions") come alive with a vengence and fury.
Europeans, in short, are not some more highly evolved human species as David Michael Green infers. They are instead so many dependent children of the largess of the USA who have so far behanved themselves quite well thank you very much. LIkewise for the Japanese whose current government leader shows how easily our former enemieds in war ca nrevert to their old beliefs.
Bravo, Mr. Green.
It's time to change the frame of this whole mess. You've done it very effectively.
But will the political discourse in the U.S. change? Will the democrats stop talking about "mistakes" in Iraq and an "incompetent" president? Will they commit to withdraw every last military man out of Iraq?
Americans are victim to their boorish egoism.
In our rush to bash America, let's not mistakenly elevate the Europeans. The French are obsessed with nuclear power and sank a Greenpeace ship. The British Labour Party under Blair was totally co-opted. And the Europeans paved the way for us Americans with real estate -- they let the usury institutions run roughshod over private ownership of equity. All owned by banks. I'm told that young people in many/most places can simply forget the notion that they'll ever actually own a home. Perpetual renters. When they were colonial powers (whether Falklands, Iraq, or now impoverished African countries), they took a despotic approach that practically makes Bush look benign. It's bullshit to raise Europeans while condemning Americans to make a point.
The point is well enough taken without a "noble European" myth.
For all of those who think that 9/11 was just a random tragedy carried out by a bunch of bizarre nut cases hijacking airliners do two things:
1. Learn about the coefficient of gravity--which is the time it takes for an object to travel through earth's atmosphere in free fall to the ground. Then realize that both WTC twin towers could not have free fallen because they had over 100 plus stories of "stuff" between their penthouse and the ground.
2. Now, go look up the video of both towers collapsing and time them with a stop watch. What you have seen and timed is as physically impossible as the carnage inflicted on 11/22/63 in Dallas by only three bullets from Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle.
The only way such massive structures could have disappeared from the NY skyline so quickly is if there was nothing inside the outer shell of those buildings. Yet the towers collapsed just that quickly and nobody dares to ask how could such a thing have happened.
"This was not a 'mistake' made by an 'incompetent' president. It was those things, to be sure, but leaving it at that would be like describing 9/11 in the history books as an airplane crash. This was a king sporting. This was a war trumped up with zero necessity. This was a war of power and profit. This was a war of immense deceits. This is a disastrous war of epic proportions. My guess is that Americans simply can't go there"
Mike Malloy just said, comparing the Smirk's murders with those of the gun-toting kid at the Nebraska mall, "George Bush murders eight people before I eat breakfast".
How many who recognized the fundamental evil of this wretch and his hitmen poured out agony on the "Sorry World" site in the weeks following the theft of 2004?
But what can be said of the French voters who put in the new Blair, Mossad Sarkozy, into power in the last election, or the rise of neocon blather under the auspices of Bernard Henri-Levy, Pascal Bruckner, Alain Finkelkraut?
Poet; I'm Canadian. And just after I wrote that nice statement about the euros being a little tired of war I watched a nice little story on CBC about Kosevo... Stupid buggering nationalistic euro fools! How dare the former citizens of Yugoslavia torpedo my arguement!? You'd think they were typical humans or something like that... Grumble grumble grumble....
David Michael Green is an astute political scientist and gifted writer.
He and Naomi Klein are among a small number of people who have been able to grasp the magnitude of the causes and catastrophes that have resulted from the takeover of the American political system by the conservative movement and the Bush/Cheney cabal that seized the levers of power in 2000 after stealing the election.
Where I disagree with Green is when he puts the onus of responsibility on the gullible Americans who voted for Bush and the compliant Congress that let his administration get away with its destructive acts.
I, too, am a political scientist but it has taken me several years to put all the pieces together to figure out how the U.S. government got high-jacked by the truly depraved war profiteers, oil companies and religious fanatics who masterminded the disasters the Bush administration has inflicted on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Grasping the multiplicity of factors that led to these disasters and the concomitant demise of our democracy is not an "easy read" even for a trained political scientist.
Throughout recorded history ordinary people have been deceived and victimized by unscrupulous leaders over and over again, who have wantonly used them as fodder for their war machines in order to gain personal power and booty. That the Bush administration duped the American people into supporting its invasion and occupation of Iraq and sent unarmored troops into battle is not unusual from an historical point of view, however despicable it has always been from a moral point of view.
Green is right to point out that Americans have never been told the truth about the extent to which the U.S. government and military forces have been used not to promote democracy and freedom but far too often to undermine it in order to confer control of markets and natural resources like oil on private interests. But that's the way depraved governments have operated throughout history. They pull the wool over the eyes of their citizenry by conjuring up external threats and then commit the most dastardly deeds behind their backs.
The use of 9/11 to justify the invasion of Iraq to transfer control of its oil fields to Western oil companies and establish permanent military bases there from which to protect the oil fields and pipelines is an extension into the post-peak oil period of what the U.S. and its allies have been doing for decades in the Middle East to get cheap oil.
So the Bush/Cheney administration's lies to the American people about Iraq are not a departure from prior chapters in American history. What IS new is that so many truth tellers are emerging from every nook and cranny of government and public life to blow the whistle on their schemes and insist they be held accountable. More ordinary people are becoming privy to what has been going on in the inner sanctums of the Bush administration than has ever been the case in prior conflicts or administrations. The popular drum beat for holding them accountable for their war crimes is only going to get louder as more and more Americans get in the loop and climb on the bandwagon of public outrage.
The Republican Party has been ruined by the conduct of the Bush administration and will bear the stain of its crimes for the foreseeable future. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and company are going to be hounded by human rights activists for the rest of their lives for torturing, kidnapping, illegally detaining and refusing to allow the detainees due process. Domestically, they are also going to be investigated for the rest of their lives for subverting our constitution and abrogating our civil and political rights.
The Bush administration and the various elements of the conservative movement that orchestrated the Bush foreign policy fiascos are going to be vilified around the world for having transformed the country that was once one of the world's most inspiring democracies into the nation that is now the single greatest threat to world peace.
Worse still, ordinary Americans are going to have to fear for their lives in every country in the world where there are aggrieved individuals whose families and friends have been killed and maimed by Bush administration military actions, who will be carrying grudges about these atrocities. There will be harsh lessons for Americans to learn about retribution.
But eventually they will realize they must insist that the U.S. government conduct itself as a law-abiding member of the international community. They will insist on electing governments in the U.S. that use our wealth and ingenuity to help all countries prosper rather than illicitly help private interests seize control of other countries' natural resources, as the Bush administration is attempting to do in Iraq by transferring control of its oil to Western oil interests.
Great article by David Green, he has covered it all accurately.I guess one of the things that bother me the most about the wrecking of America in seven years is that it could not have been acccomplished without the fundamentalist right wingers solid block of voters plus the NRA gun crazies. The loud mouthed religious blowhards convinced their churchgoing sheep that Bush and his band of lying criminals were doing the will of God and must be elected. It is just about enough to turn a luke-warm Christian into a non believer! We have apparently lost our democracy, our respect from other nations, the rich have looted our treasury, over 30,000 of our soldiers have been killed or ruined for life, our social programs are on the edge of collapse, our privacy is gone, and still all we hear is too be sure to elect a Christian like the one that put us in this kind of shape. Go figure!
I'd like to know who the Europeans needed protection from? Nobody came to help them when Hitler invaded and occupied our countries, did they? In fact, if Hitler hadn't attacked Russia, the war would have gone very differently - and maybe we'd all have learned different lessons about the fruits of fascism.
And which European countries tried to defend the sovereignty of Afghanistan or Iraq when the US decided to invade those countries? Yeah, thought so. They're too busy quibbling among themselves - even the smallest European country is on the verge of secession by one half or the other (including my own family's homeland.)
Russia is the only country behaving like there is any sanity on board - especially in the government, which the people heartily support (they learned the hard way - as we will.) And since the only threat on the planet comes from the US - that's why Europeans (and others) let Americans have those bases in their countries - not to defend them from some un-named imaginary bogeyman, but to protect them from the Americans themselves! It's like giving a kid an ice-cream cone to shut him up - it prevents tantrums, not to mention threats and bombing. (Any European will tell you that the Allies did all the bombing - not the Nazis - and it was Russian foot-soldiers that defeated the Nazis, not Allied bombing, let alone the invasions.)
Even Americans who think they are educated don't know diddly about history - they don't get enough different perspectives. In Europe, you collect all the lies from your neighbors and figure out the truth from there... it works, in a roundabout sort of way. Small countries are the only way to avoid being inundated with tons of Bull-squat - they trade insults which always involve a grain of truth... Divide the US, China, and what's left of Russia into smaller chunks and we may see peace finaly breaking out - getting rid of all those nukes might help too.
As for the Iraqis - I can't feel all that sorry for them anymore. They've had 5 years to get rid of the invaders and I guess they'd rather flee or die in the millions than throw them out - so maybe they deserve what they're getting as well. My patience with them has worn pretty thin... I'd be up in arms by now - wouldn't you? 20-odd million Iraqis against a couple hundred thousand troops - it should be no contest. What do they have to lose? They're going to lose it all anyway now. Too many collaborators that are now too entrenched...
Humans are the only animals stupid enough to go to war with themselves - that should tell you something. (Well, there are those ants...) It's a mistake of evolution, but it will self-correct, and probably sooner than you think. What other animal invents imaginary friends and enemies? Yeah, thought so. Maybe that's what really happened to the dinosaurs... just a thought...
I've been to Quebec, so you Canadians can get off your High Horse anytime - your out-houses smell as bad as anyone else's... just because Americans take the prize for ignorance, stupidity and antisocial behavior right now doesn't mean they are the only ones - just one of the worst present examples. Somebody has to be at the top of the heap - different tribes take turns...
I would bet a new, fifty cent piece that MR. Green knew that Bush was a major asshole before he became Gov. of Texas. Many people looked at George Bush and knew what they were seeing, and it was a scary realization that a piece of garbage like Bush would very likely "win" the presidency. The Americans that Mr. Green singles out for critizism are those who, for one reason or another, could not look at the man and realize what they were seeing. It is astonishing that so many Americans actually voted for Bush when one look at him should have given them a clue to his character, and if looking at him didn't tell them anything, they should have known something was wrong when he opened his mouth. My neighbor is 72 years old. She asked me, when I wondered who she voted for, how could anyone vote for Gore? And there it is. A criminal at 72 - told to vote for Bush by her Baptist Preacher. Americans should be tested for their knowledge of government, its Constitution, its Bill of Rights, the history that precipitated a new country. The test should be demanding. Depending on their scores, Americans would be granted votes. A perfect score would get you 100 votes, and so on, down to one vote for someone who couldn't spell their name. It's grossly unfair that an intelligent, informed vote should be canceled by someone like my neighbor, or for that matter, someone who gets all of their political knowledge from Murdoch's Fox News.
I know I work day in day out to stop this insanity, this Fascist Gov't. I've responses from many persons re; my questions, demands and why, why, why? I do not feel a bit of guilt, I do everything I can everyday of the week.
I will be in Paris and will try to see French prosecutor Jean Claude Marin re; opening an investigation into Rumsfelds involvement in Torture. I will be with the Women in Black at their weekly vigil, I will be in Frankfurt with CODEPINK, my group, and participate in their campaigns.
Call me a cocky MF'er Makes no never mind to me, I do it because it needs to be done. I will keep doing it until I get what we want.
My Rep. is sick of me, when there is a Bill I hate I call 10, 12, 18 times a day because I am a CITIZEN, he represents MY interests, I could care less if I drive them crazy, same for Senators and Committees.
It is what it is, It Is What I, as a CITIZEN, have a right to do.
DaveEriqat: I've come to recognize that there's nothing I can do to change the situation. The only rational course of action is to focus on self preservation, selfish as that sounds.
Our individual self-preservation can be in full solidarity/synergy with our neighbors all across the biosphere. We can self-preserve by cooperating with our neighbors, engaging in win-win deals, and maximizing production efficiencies, market value, economic and social justice and the whole spectrum of public interests. Self-preservation can be WIN-WIN.
Watch out. It is the capitalist who introduces the zero sum game, steamrolling over solidarity/synergy. But when we take the moral high road we avoid victimization by the capitalist. We become deaf to the capitalist's siren song. So let's become individually self-sufficient in full solidarity with the whole world community, by shifting our individual exchange/association away from capitalist power and toward our local communities.
It would be a tremendous mistake to think that the horns worn by this country were spawned by Bush. No, the conspiracy against our republic democracy began 150 years ago with the Civil War that was orchestrated by European Bankers conspiring with their governments seeking to divide and rule us by supporting the Southern states to secede one by one and set up their own central banks.
Once war started the French and British governments supported the South with while Russia came to aid of the North (it was not free, after the war we had to buy Alaska, called a folly at the time but it worked out well). Lincoln was assassinated for not giving them the Central bank they desired in which to control us.
Wilson struck the mortal blow in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve Corporation (central bank) and the creation of a Income Tax, making sure to provide the rich the option to create tax free foundations. This made us into a defacto finacial corporate oligarchy and turned us from a government where the states controlled the Federal government to one where we were ruled by the Federal government. The income tax gave the Federal government the ability to raise money for wars, and the Fed made it easy to borrow money for the wars, and ever since, we have had almost 100 years of near constant war.
I dare anyone to find a legitimate reason for Wilson to enter WW I that does not include serving the interests of our bankers and industrialists.
He campaigned in 1916 to keep us out of the war since we had no interest in the outcome, and then after election, several months later he changed his mind and we were in, and 500,000 Americans killed. The Versailles treaty that he agreed to but that was never ratified because it was known at the time to be the likely cause of the next war with Germany. The League of Nations was the first attempt at a global government, but again, the Senate refused to go along with it.
Communism? Who let Trotsky leave our country knowing he was going to start a revolution with Lenin financed by American and British interests? Canada detained him when his ship stopped there because everyone knew if the Bolsheviks took power they would get out of the war with Germany, which they did, but since he had a US passport Wilson was able to intervene and he was released.
Who helped make sure the Bolsheviks won the revolution after WW I?. Follow the money. After they took control, guess who got a piece of the oil pie, you guessed it, our own Rockefeller who under the Czar was shut out with the fields controlled by Rothschilds in Europe. Rockefeller established the CFR in 1921 at this time, the US branch of a group envisioning one world government, and Communism was considered at the time as an interesting model for the future government. Today David Rockefeller is thought by some to be our Global Czar, and is on the CFR and it's offspring the Bilderbergs and Trilateral Commission.
The Depression? Created by the Fed, all those financial elites dumped their stocks before the Fed raised interest rates by 3% and causing the crash. After the crash, the jumped in and bought cheap, and were well position for the preparations for the next war which was already being planned.
FDR started by taking us off the gold standard in 1933 allowing the next war to be financed more easily, then he formally recognized Stalins brutal regime since we needed them as an ally against Germany. Investment in the Soviet Union was then facilitated by the creation of the Export Import Bank, created by Executive Order, which guaranteed loans to foreign countries, and were made to the Soviet Union.
Hitler was allowed to build up Nazi Germany despite his prosecution of the Jews, all with the help of financing from American bankers and industrialists. See if you want a war to last a while, you have to arm both sides properly.
Prescott Bush was Director of Hitlers bank in the US up until 1943 when it was liquidated under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The New Deal was a cover for the NRA which was just a way to corporatize government (otherwise known as fascist). And his War Powers Act of 1917 as amended in 1933 allowed the powers Wilson gave himself in 1917 to be used against US citizens, which this is still in effect today.
FDR then cut off oil to Japan, an act of war, knowing they would attack us, and he allowed it to happen, ala 9/11, and so we were able to get into the war in Europe despite public opposition before Dec 7. Why did the British declare war on Germany over Poland, especially when the Soviets also invaded Poland as part of their pact with Germany? They were in on the deal and wanted Germany in a 2 front war since everyone knew they would invade the Soviet Union, and the FDR and the Brits wanted to ensure the Soviets would prevail. Why? WW II is a bit complicated because we had a faction here in the US that supported the Nazi's, but Zionism was a movement of influence at the time, and a victory by Germany would mean the end of their dreams for their own state in Palestine which was promised them by the British who ruled it under the British Mandate. The Rothschilds of London pretty much owned Britain, and we had a number of people of influence and money who supported Zionism in the US.
In the end, everyone in the US was kept happy and made a ton of money fighting Germany, and the military helped by promising not to bomb industrial plants where US companies had significant investments, and Israel got their state when the next attempt at a world government, the United Nations, granted their wish .
The end of WW II led to the creation of our National Security State with the establishment of the CIA. We found war to our liking, it was good for business, but even our elites were shocked by the 50-70 million critters done in by WW II, so we came up with the idea for a perpetual war against an enemy who would scare the critters but not kill so many of them. And so we created the Cold War against Communism. To do this, we needed to create an enemy, since the Soviets were our friends. And so we did this, but only after we gave them the plans for the bomb so they could be a nuclear threat to scare the critters. Also, we had a problem in China. Chiang Kai Shek was not a communist, and if China developed their economy what with all those people, they could threaten our empire, so we witheld the aid to them voted by Congress for their fight against the Communists, and thus Red China was born. So now we had 2 Red enemies.
Then along came Vietnam. The French despite being ravaged by War continued to try and keep Vietnam in the 50's. The could do this because we financed their war. Why? Because Vietnam was reported to have oil off it's shores and we wanted a puppet in charge. When the French gave up, we told the criters we needed to do Vietnam to halt the spread of communism. Heck, we created Communism we did not care if it spread, so long as it spread somewhere where there was no oil.
In 1953, Iran was a Democracy. But the President decided it was a good idea to Nationalize the oil industry. The British had agreements under the Shahs regime to pump their oil for next to nothing, and as a Democracy they felt it was not in their interests. The Brits asked for our help, and so the CIA arranged to overthrow the government and put the Shah back in power, and so began 26 years of brutal repression. When the Shah began to be difficult to control, we arranged for the Ayatollahs to take over by telling the military not to oppose any takeover or we would not provide them anymore weapons.
That did not work out as well as planned, but we convinced Saddam to invade them hoping for a regime change. We did not want Sddam to win so we had to arm which we did with the help of drug money and Israel helped us ship the weapons to Iran. Most of the drugs were sold in the US but by then the CIA was an old hand at earning money from drugs to support covert operations and weapons purchases.
Why did we support an Islamist regime in Iran? In 1978 we saw a need to end the Cold War to set the stage for taking over the Middle East, and so began preparing a new enemy called Islamism to replace it. It was like a drug, our capitalists became addicted to war. We needed to feed the monster.
So at the same time, we started training up Jihadists in Afghanistan to stir up trouble to induce the Soviets to invade so as to stabilize the government, and then we trained up and armed a whole flock of them, including Bin Laden, and kept their names in a data base called Al Qaeda.
After we had set the stage for the Soviet Collapse with their struggles in Afghanistan, our own arms build up which left their military behind in the dust, and with the coup de grace, an oil glut that dropped oil prices with the help of our Saudi friends, the Soviets were broke, they essentially gave up the ghost and decided to try Capitalism thinking we would flock to Russia to invest. Wrong. We did the opposite, our bankers stayed away, and by 1998 they were dead in the water.
When the Soviets gave up in Afghanistan, we helped the Taliban take over to facilitate the pipeline that would bring oil from the Caspian Sea to the West instead of going to Russia.
So the stage was now set for the Middle East takeover, as there was no defender with the Soviets defeated, but first we had to replace the Cold War with a new enemy and new war, again, against one of our creations - Islamism. But as the PNAC said, for that we needed a New Pearl Harbour, and so there was 9/11 and the GWOT.
I could go on, the JFK assasination, Cuba, Chile, the Nixon Coup, our reconciliation with Communist China, how the tax free foundations control education and the official history (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie), CFR-Bilderberger-Trilateral Commission conspiring to create a one world government requiring the destruction of American as we know it, etc.
Accidents of history or the Grand Conspiracy?.
"Thank you David Michael Green. This is an excellent article. I sent it to my ex who drives me crazy claiming bUSH is merely incompetent, and can thus be shrugged off. No, it's the plan, it's not incompetence!! Of course, like most Americans, he probably won't read it. How do I get through to someone who can laugh off policies that have killed, maimed and left homeless millions?"
This is it, in a nutshell. Bush is not possible without the complicity of millions of Americans