good to have buds eh? Options

[dienamic]

We had a really heated and lenthy discussion on TS tonight about terrorism, American policy etc. At the end, even though we were devided on opinion, we all agreed we were gamers and Mob members and had some really good games. Nice to know I belong to that caliber of people......

My hat goes off to you all.....peace

[Stickman]

We had a really heated and lenthy discussion on TS tonight about terrorism, American policy etc. At the end, even though we were devided on opinion, we all agreed we were gamers and Mob members and had some really good games. Nice to know I belong to that caliber of people......

My hat goes off to you all.....peace

Amen, brother!

I am happy to report that nobody lost their tempers, took offence, or resorted to ad hominem attacks.
I was, unfortunately, unsurprised that none of the Americans in the discussion had ever heard of "The Project for a New American Century". For some reason, few American conservatives seem to have heard of this think tank, established in 1997, that formulated so much of what has now become US foriegn policy. In fact, according to "project Censored", the most under-reported story of 2002-03 was the neoconservative plan for global dominance. http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/

I promised to provide some links to info on this topic. Here ya go. Whatever your views on it, I think all Americans should be aware of its existance.

A google search for "Project for the New American Century" returns 170 million results. There is a LOT of info out there for whoever wants to look for it. An awful lot of the pages make no pretence of objectivity. When in doubt, go right to the horses mouth: the official PNAC website.
http://www.newamericancentury.org

PNAC Statement of principals: http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
Check out the list of signatories at the bottom.

One of PNAC's first actions was, in Jan 1998, to send a letter to President Clinton urging him to invade Iraq. http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

Note that links to terrorism were not among the reasons given to invade. According the The PNAC Primer ( http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm ), "President Clinton replied that he was focusing on dealing with al-Qaida terrorist cells." I haven't verified that elsewhere.

In Sept. of 2000 (a year before the 911 attacks), PNAC released their plan, titled "Rebuilding Americas Defenses", in which they outline their plans to dominate the world through military force. This is probably the most widely quoted PNAC document. Here it is, in PDF format: http://www.newamericancentury.org/Rebuildi...casDefenses.pdf

Some highlights:
(Page numbers I give refer to the PDF document, not the numbers shown in the text of the document)

-The U.S. must take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein is in power: "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." (pg 26)

-"New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool" (my emphasis) (pg 72)

-Politically, the transformation to these new policies would be slow, "absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" (pg 63).

Note that the report contains no specific mention of the threat of terrorism or Al Queda.

On the left, it is widely believed that the Bush government seized eagerly and cynically on the 911 attacks as a golden opportunity to forward their policy goals. It seems a little to convenient to find that all the things they wanted to do anyway were now essential to fight terrorism, when terrorism was clearly not a factor in the formulation of these policies. In fact, within hours of the 911 attacks, Rumsfeld was already searching for ways to blame Iraq, despite early evidence Bin Ladin, not Iraq, was responsible.
( http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/...ain520830.shtml )

For further reading, Wikipedia is a good place to start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_t...merican_Century

Additional bonus factiod:

Have you ever heard of Operation Ajax? No? It was the CIA's 1953 operation to overthow Irans first (and only) democratically elected Government, and install a brutal dictator more friendly to US and British business interests. The US continued to support this dictator (the Shah) for another 25 years, until he was overthrown by the fundamentalist islamic movement that still rules today.
America seems to have forgotten this. The Muslim world hasn't. Newsflash: They don't hate you because of your freedoms! There's a little more to it that that, but the US media don't seem eager to tell you about it.

Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

This post has been edited by Stickman: 03/20/06 8:41am