How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Welfare State Read online

  The cultivation of this myth was very beneficial for the profits and power of the US military/security complex. When the Soviet collapse disposed of “the threat,” the military/security complex came up with a new threat—Muslim Terrorism—and has used this threat to expand the military/ security budget and the infringement of civil liberty beyond what was achieved by hyping the Soviet threat. Evidently, Muslims with box cutters are more frightening to Americans than Soviets with nuclear weapons.

  To the Soviets, who had no military designs on Western Europe, the formation of NATO looked like Anglo-American encirclement of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union’s response was to form the Warsaw Pact with Eastern Europe in 1955—six years after the formation of NATO. The Warsaw Pact was immediately misrepresented by Western cold warriors as evidence of Soviet military designs on Europe.

  In those days US news magazines were full of maps of Warsaw Pact divisions arrayed against NATO divisions. The troop disparity so greatly favored the Soviet side that President Eisenhower despaired of the financial cost of matching the Soviets in troops and conventional weapons. Deciding in favor of more bang for the buck, Eisenhower shifted US military doctrine to reliance on nuclear weapons. Republicans, then as now, were fixated on budget deficits, and Eisenhower found budget deficits to be greater threats than nuclear war.

  It is doubtful that NATO ever served any purpose commensurate with the risk. Regardless, NATO lost its purpose 22 years ago when the Soviet Union collapsed. NATO exists today because Washington stood NATO on its head and reconstituted it as an offensive military alliance serving Washington’s wars for world hegemony.

  The Russian government understands that the expansion of NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries and also into former Soviet Republics that were part of the Soviet Union constitutes encirclement. This bold and reckless encirclement of Russia by Washington and its NATO puppet states is underlined by Washington’s establishment of missile bases on former Warsaw Pact territory. The purpose of these missile bases is to neutralize or to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent. No one believes Washington’s claim that the anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s frontier are directed at Iran. Washington’s encirclement of Russia is reckless and dangerous.

  Present day Russia is not the Soviet Union, but Russia possesses sufficient nuclear weapons and delivery systems to destroy Western Europe and the US. What purpose is being served by Washington’s aggressive use of NATO against Russia?

  Is the purpose worth the risk of nuclear war? Why has Washington raised tensions to the point that the Deputy Defense Minister of Russia, Anatoly Antonov, felt compelled to state publicly on July 2, 2013, that no country will be able to attack Russia’s strategic nuclear forces with impunity? Why have policymakers in Washington, wallowing in their hubris, caused the Russians to perceive such a high level of threat? The answer is that Washington’s commitment to the US military/security complex places profits above life. As far as the military/security complex is concerned, Americans cannot have enough enemies. Protecting America’s security is a profitable business.

  Washington used NATO for the first time as an offensive weapon to break apart Yugoslavia during 1993-95. NATO air strikes and bombings frustrated the Yugoslavian government’s attempt to prevent the breakup of the country into its constituent parts. In 1999 Washington again used NATO to strip from Serbia its historic homeland of Kosovo and deliver it into Muslim hands.

  In 2001 Washington pretended that the 9/11 attack was the work of Afghanistan and forced NATO to invoke Article 5. This article says that an attack on one member is an attack on all, requiring every NATO country to come to Washington’s aid. By forcing NATO to invoke Article 5, Washington provided cover for its war of aggression against Afghanistan, now in its twelfth year. It is extraordinary that Congress has allowed the executive branch to squander trillions of dollars on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when Washington is dependent on the Federal Reserve to finance its annual budget deficits by printing money and is considering curtailing Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits in order to reduce the federal budget deficit.

  In 2011 the Obama regime used NATO to overthrow the government of Libya. Until blocked by Russia and the British Parliament, the Obama regime tried to get NATO involved in the Syrian conflict that Washington initiated by having Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates arm the Islamists who wish to overthrow the secular Assad government.

  In 2008, egged on by Washington, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia attacked Russian peacekeeping troops and the Russian population of South Ossetia. In reassuring the Georgian government, Washington miscalculated the Russian response. The Russian military made short work of the US and Israeli trained and armed Georgian army and could easily have reincorporated Georgia back into Russia, where it was for 200 years and where many believe it belongs. However, with the point made, Russia withdrew its victorious forces.

  Thirsting for revenge, which seems to be the main motivation of Washington throughout its history, Washington is trying to convince NATO to extend membership to Georgia, a country located in Asia between the Black and Caspian Seas far removed from the North Atlantic. NATO membership would make Georgia a treaty protectorate of Washington and NATO, which is Washington’s way of sticking its finger into Putin’s eye and telling Russia that it will have to acquiesce in Georgia’s next act of aggression or risk general war with the West.

  No clearer statement could be made that Washington is reckless and willing to risk war for prestige reasons alone. But for Washington’s NATO puppets, the stakes are extremely high—every capital city of Europe and the very existence of the European population.

  It is NATO that enables Washington to be reckless and aggressive. Without the cover NATO provides and the bases NATO makes available, Washington would have to transform itself from an aggressive warmongering bully into a good neighbor. Europeans have resisted Georgia’s NATO membership precisely for the reasons outlined above, but Washington is persistent and usually prevails with bribes, threats, and political pressure.

  To the extent that the US media reports on any of these dangerous developments, it is usually along the lines of a partisan sports announcer cheering that his team is winning. Washington’s aggressive use of NATO against Russia’s security can easily lead to miscalculation.

  Washington is using NATO to incorporate the military forces of the 27 NATO countries into Washington’s Empire Army. For example, Spanish navy ships are armed with US weapons systems, such as AEGIS, and are integrated into US forces under the rubric of “interoperability between NATO member nations.” In other words, European governments are losing control over their own armed forces which are increasingly unable to operate outside the US dominated NATO structure.

  Following their defeat in World War II, both Germany and Japan were prohibited from having any offensive military capability. Now both countries are being incorporated into the forces supporting Washington’s wars for world hegemony.

  NATO is expensive as well as an enabler of US aggression. The military budgets of NATO countries account for 70% of world expenditures on military forces. Because of disputed sovereignty, the number of countries in the world cannot be precisely stated, but the boundaries are 190-206 separate countries.

  If we take the lower number, then 15 percent of the countries in the world—the NATO members—account for 70 percent of world military expenditures.

  In contrast, 85 percent of the countries in the world, including China, India, Iran, and Russia, account for 30 percent of military expenditures.

  Obviously, Washington has honed NATO into a tool for military aggression.

  Europe cannot afford to fight for Washington in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Europe lacks the resources to deal with its sovereign debt problems and is having to resort to severe austerity imposed on European populations. Unemployment and poverty are rising in Europe. Yet, European countries that cannot afford to pay their police and teachers and run their medical services are spe
nding money they do not have in order to fight for American hegemony in distant areas of the world where Europeans have no national interests.

  The Poles, Hungarians, and Czechs revolted against their Soviet overlords. Washington preempts revolt by paying off the European governments. By enabling Washington, NATO is setting the course for World War III. Poland’s decision to accept US missile bases on its border with Russia might be a fatal step on the path to World War III.

  Today the US faces no hostile military power. Although Russia and China have substantial military capability and the governments of both countries are described as “authoritarian” by Western propagandists, neither government represents a communist ideology hostile to the West. The governments of both countries are striving to avoid conflict with the US and to improve the wellbeing of citizens.

  The only dangerous ideology in the world today is Washington’s ideology of neoconservatism. This ideology proclaims the US to be the “indispensable nation,”with the right and responsibility to impose its economic and political system on the world. Claes Ryn calls neoconservatism “the New Jacobinism,” the French Revolution all over again, only this time the target is not merely Europe but the entire world.

  Neoconservatism is an aggressive ideology and foments self- righteousness and militarism. The aggressiveness of the ideology is reflected in the Pentagon’s June 19, 2013, report to Congress outlining US nuclear war strategy. The report shows that more than two decades after the collapse of the “Soviet threat” Washington is still preparing for waging nuclear war.

  The report attempts to lull Russia by stating that “it is not our intent to negate Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent, or to destabilize the strategic military relationship with Russia.” However, the report backtracks on the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review that set the goal of limiting the purpose of US nuclear weapons to deterrence of nuclear attack.

  The June 2013 report says: “we cannot adopt such a policy today.”

  Washington’s excuse for retaining the right to initiate a nuclear attack is the threat of “nuclear terrorism” by “Al Qaeda and their extremist allies.” Al Qaeda is not a state or a country. The report does not say how a preemptive US nuclear attack can be used against Al Qaeda. Indeed, the extremism of Al Qaeda is the product of Washington’s imperialism. If Washington would leave Muslims alone, the extremism would be internalized between Sunni and Shi’ites and between secular rulers and Islamists.

  If the US would renounce its interventionist policies, the terrorist threat would abate.

  Even the present level of hostility does not prevent Chechen terrorists from cooperating with Washington in efforts to destabilize the Russian North Caucasus region.

  Washington’s use of Muslim extremists against the Russian state dates to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. When Gorbachev became General Secretary, he informed Washington that he was withdrawing Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In their 2012 book, The Untold History of the United States, Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick report that instead of facilitating the end of the conflict, Washington worked to tie down Soviet forces in Afghanistan as long as possible by supplying Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri with money and weapons and by blocking UN attempts to broker a settlement.

  The neoconservatives are bitter that the Cold War ended without a US military triumph over Russia. It is a triumph that the dangerous warmongers still hope to achieve.

  CONCLUSION

  As at the conclusion of this writing in December, 2013, it appears that Washington might have lost the initiative in fomenting wars in the Middle East. Most of the world has concluded, along with the Russian government, that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was an orchestrated pretext for US military intervention in behalf of the Islamist attempt to overthrow the secular Assad government. The diplomatic offensive by Iran’s president, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, has further constrained Washington’s ability to obtain support from other countries as a cover for Washington’s wars of aggression.

  Washington, of course, is unhappy with these restraints, but the risk to Washington of initiating naked aggression without some kind of cover, such as a UN resolution, NATO support, or a “coalition of the willing,” is to be branded a war criminal. Washington’s ability to continue its march through the neoconservatives’ list of governments to be overthrown lacks the necessary support both at home and abroad. Washington might possibly use a false flag event in order to regain support for remaking the Middle East, but this would be risky considering the high level of skepticism that now exists related to the US government’s account of 9/11.

  During the twelve years of Washington’s focus on the “war on terror,” other developments have occurred that Washington now regards as greater threats to its hegemony. Under the leadership of Putin and Medvedev, Russia has emerged as a diplomatic force independent of foreign financial control, and China has emerged as an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse that eclipses the US economy.

  After a costly decade of wars in the Middle East with no offsetting gains, the Obama regime announced the “Pivot to Asia,” a policy of encircling China with military bases.

  The Pivot to Asia calls for shifting 60 percent of the US fleet to positions from which the US can both control choke points, such as the Straits of Malacca, through which China’s vital trade and energy imports flow, and bolster other countries in their disputes with China over resource rich islands.

  To accommodate and to protect the fleet, Washington is seeking air and naval bases in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Myanmar. Additionally, Washington is pushing a Trans-Pacific Partnership designed to further dollar imperialism and to counter China’s growing trade with Asian countries.

  Washington intends to offset Russia and China’s ability to constrain US hegemony with military encirclement and by fomenting internal instability. Washington has surrounded Russia with military bases and anti-ballistic missile sites and is attempting to make NATO members of former constituent parts of the Russian empire, such as Georgia and Ukraine. Washington has targeted Russia and China with Washington-financed Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and covertly supports Muslim separatists in both countries.

  Washington’s policy is financially and diplomatically expensive and increases the risk of nuclear war. It is a very ambitious policy for the US, which is financially and diplomatically impaired from twelve years of war and which is unable to recover from five years of economic weakness despite unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus.

  Washington now suffers from its own economic and political divisions, with the bulk of the population failing to advance and even regressing, while income and wealth have been concentrated in fewer hands. Washington’s superpower ambitions do not seem to be matched by its capabilities. The large disparity between Washington’s goals and capabilities implies failure. If Washington is unable to accept failure, Washington will resort to war.

  The prospect of war is only one of the dangers emanating from Washington that confronts Americans and the rest of the world. The 21st century transformation of the United States from a democratic accountable government to a lawless tyranny is a threat not only to Americans but also to peoples everywhere.

  The Bush and Obama regimes set themselves up as higher than law, declaring their independence from international law and the Geneva Conventions and from US statutory law and the Constitution. The hoax “war on terror” is used to provide legal legitimacy for these spurious claims.

  Among all the democratic countries in the world, only the president of the United States proclaims that he has the right to murder citizens without due process of law, without charges presented to a court, without trial and conviction for a capital offense. Only the president of the United States claims the legal right to indefinitely imprison citizens without cause being presented to a court and conviction obtained in a court. Only the president of the United States has declared that he has the right to violate peremptory norms of international law by torturin
g detainees. Only the president of the United States declares that he has the right to spy not only on Americans in violation of their Constitutional right to privacy and statutory US law, but also on all the peoples of the world.

  Little doubt but that brutal dictators murder people and throw them in dungeons without trial or conviction. Are these dictators behaving illegally and unconstitutionally, or are they ruling in countries in which there is no rule of law?

  Certainly, no other government that claims to be democratic is equipped with a Department of Justice, as Obama is and Bush was, that concocts legal justification for the head of the executive branch to be elevated above law despite the Constitution’s prohibition of any such elevation. To rule independently of a rule of law is to be lawless.

  In America the federal courts, both houses of Congress, law schools, the public and presstitute media have accepted the claims that the head of the executive branch, the president, has “unitary powers” that place him above accountability in certain circumstances such as war--thus the orchestration of “the war on terror.” Although the president fallaciously claims to be unaccountable, there is no provision in international law that provides exceptions for war crimes, and the US Military Code does not extend this protection to soldiers and military officers.

  The Bush and Obama regimes have committed crimes against numerous peoples and laws comparable to those committed by members of Germany’s National Socialist government who were executed for their crimes. It was US prosecutors who established the basis for the capital crimes for which Germans were held accountable. Yet Bush and Obama have contrived legal arguments that seek to make them exempt from accountability, and the judiciary, Congress, and the media have failed to challenge the claims.