This was among some snips sent me yesterday.
Paula
"Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush
said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor". Its published aims have,
alarmingly, come true." by John Pilger :12 Dec 2002
"The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and
individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written more
than two years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for America
to dominate much of humanity and the world's resources, it said, was "some
catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The attacks
of 11 September 2001 provided the "new Pearl Harbor", described as "the
opportunity of ages". The extremists who have since exploited 11 September
come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and "think-tanks"
were established to avenge the American "defeat" in Vietnam. In the 1990s,
there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a "peace dividend"
following the cold war. The Project for the New American Century was
formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute
and others that have since merged the ambitions of the Reagan
administration with those of the current Bush regime.
"One of George W Bush's "thinkers" is Richard Perle. I interviewed
Perle when he was advising Reagan; and when he spoke about "total war", I
mistakenly dismissed him as mad. He recently used the term again in
describing America's "war on terror". "No stages," he said. "This is total
war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out
there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we
will do Iraq... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just
let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we
don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war...
our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
"Perle is one of the founders of the Project for the New American
Century, the PNAC. Other founders include Dick Cheney, now vice-president,
Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence
secretary, I Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, William J Bennett,
Reagan's education secretary, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's ambassador to
Afghanistan. These are the modern chartists of American terrorism. The
PNAC's seminal report, Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and
resources for a new century, was a blueprint of American aims in all but
name. Two years ago it recommended an increase in arms-spending by $48bn so
that Washington could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre
wars". This has happened. It said the United States should develop
"bunker-buster" nuclear weapons and make "star wars" a national priority.
This is happening. It said that, in the event of Bush taking power, Iraq
should be a target. And so it is"...
http://pilger.carlton.com/print/124759
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