I just got back from a week out of town and had to read twelve pages of this thread to catch up. So indulge me for a long post... starting with a relevant quote;
" Of course, the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
_ Herman Goering,
founder of the Gestapo
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I don't want to offend anybody here but I feel I must comment on some observations I've made over the last 40 years. Americans don't want to know the truth because it threatens their comfort. Americans (and I mean in general, the majority of Americans) would rather not know about their government's actions if those actions are indefensible. I can think of hundreds of examples and will give you a couple here.
The "Dugway" incident. The Air Force did a test run of a chemical weapon released from a fighter aircraft near the Dugway bio-weapons facility in Utah. They thought it would not harm anyone but the winds changed and blew the weapon across a highway and a rural area killing 64,000 sheep, innumerable other wildlife and most importantly, a man's young son. The Air Force denied for years that they had done this. They even denied that Dugway tested biological and chemical weapons though everyone knew they did. No one was compensated and the investigation was faked. The public forgot this incident very quickly and, 15 years later, the Air Force admitted that it was at fault and that the original allegations were all true. But by then, it seemed no one cared.
In the World Trade Center bombing done by the "Blind Sheik" the trial of one of the perpetrators brought out some interesting facts. Apparently the FBI had an agent inside the group. The man who was to supply the explosives was working with the FBI. It was the FBI who supplied the explosives that were used. The plan was to give them fake explosives and apprehend them on their way to the WTC. The FBI at the last minute decided that was too risky and gave them real explosives. The agent was frantically warning them that the bombing was happening. "It's tomorrow" then "It's today" "They're on their way! you must stop them!" But the FBI did nothing except arrest everyone
after the bomb went off. And yet, although all this information is in the transcripts of the trial, and was never denied (in fact it was actually confirmed) by the FBI, no one seemed to care and the media didn't cover it.
The Iran Contra affair. The trial of Ollie North brought a very disturbing fact to light. The CIA was the world's number one dealer of heroin and cocaine. It was during this trial that federal agents went into newsrooms all over the country threatening the careers and even the lives of reporters, editors and broadcasters. They provided scripts to be read and essentially took over the news process blatantly and with incredible effectiveness. Bernard Shaw, an ex CNN anchorman detailed this in an interview on PBS. He quit his lucrative career as a CNN News anchor because he couldn't go along with the censorship. He said his life was threatened and that many of his colleagues had also quit. He claimed that from this point forward the news from national media was being "cleared" by federal agents.
If you could go to the UPI and Reuters news links that are used by the press, the "inside" links, you would see a header on every story of either "cleared for public release" or "not yet cleared for public release, may need to be modified, do not use". I saw this when I got a link to a Dick Cheney interview from a reporter but unfortunately I can't find where I stored the link. I browsed the wire transcripts and was amazed that every story had this header.
Americans want to trust their government. They are willing to look the other way and basically live in denial ("They all do it" "It's always been that way" "There's nothing we could do about it anyway") They don't listen if you try to tell them about our State Department supporting dictatorships and horrible human rights abuses in other countries. They figure there must be a good reason and intuitively they think these actions are protecting the American way of life (which in the perverted global economic reality is true, but still not defensible and also not necessary). I've railed against our geo-political intervention for over 40 years, Bautista, Papa Doc Duvalier, the Shah of Iran, the Saudi Royals, Noriega, Allende, Idi Amin, the Taliban and Saddam Hussien to name a few. How many of you were complaining about these dictators when they were the darlings of our foriegn policy? Did you not know? I know that most people I told about these guys (and a lot of far more disgusting atrocities commited to preserve the American way of life) didn't want to know.
Watergate is a great example, it was known for over a year and a half before the press ever mentioned it but no one I told about it would believe it, until the Washington Post and CBS said it was true. Which only speaks to my lack of credibility and why I don't bother with links to facts anymore because unless CNN says it (or even if they do in many cases) you won't believe it anyway. ( <- handy quote to discredit me with
)
You all debate over the oil in Iraq like it's some kind of prize for the Iraqi's or the invaders. It's neither (unless you're an oil company). It's strategy and it goes like this... Right now the Iraqi oil is not that important to America, we get most of ours from other sources. It's critically important to many other countries along with the Caspian Sea oil reserves which together amount to more than half of the world's oil. Asia, Russia, Europe all are dependant on these oil reserves. To really understand it's best to look at another example. Monsanto has bought up the entire water supply infrastructure of India (and several other countries). In an interview, a Monsanto executive was asked why they would be interested in this unusual departure from their normal business plan. His reply astonished the reporter who never expected to get such a straight-forward honest answer.
The Monsanto exec said "People can only live for a couple days without water. If you ever wanted to get somebody to do what you want, what would be a better way than to turn off their water supply?" These days oil is as important as water to a country's economy and the distribution of food and power (survival in other words). When the world's supply of oil, water, food and power is controlled by a handfull of corporations and a couple of governments, you will see an empire of unprecedented historical scale. A New World Order, or as the Neocons like to call it, a Pax Americana. Unchallengeable and undefeatable.
Jafo was right about spice...
@shu posted some really good links, you should read them...
The Herman Goering quote at the beginning of this is only one of many Third Reich and Mein Kamph wisdoms being promoted (and often directly quoted) by the current administration. The significance of this coincidence is not being missed by the rest of the world...
Don't forget the "liberation" of the Iraqi's from their torture only became an issue after the WMD argument fell on it's face. The State Department said of the Taliban and Saddam's atrocities (when we thought they would cooperate with our desires) "We can live with that". The PNAC's blueprint for the current administration said we needed to take over Iraq whether or not Saddam was still there (though he offered a great excuse). This war has nothing to do with protecting you from terrorism, in fact, it will probably make the terrorist threat much worse. We still don't know anything about 9/11 except the guy who sent money to Mohamed Atta was the head of the Pakistan secret police (the ISI, created by the CIA) and was at CIA headquarters for the week leading up to 9/11 (was flown home secretly on the 12th). The stock exchange "puts and shorts" that made millions off the attack were never reported on because the only links that were found were to a bank run by a guy that is now the assistant director of the CIA and to an FBI anti-terrorism office in Los Angeles.
We know the war against Afganistan was planned to begin in October (right when it did) to overthrow the Taliban (who refused to allow the Unocal pipeline project to go forward), install an American run government and get the pipeline built (it's well under way now thanks to Harmid Kerzzai and ex Unocal employee who is the American installed leader of Afganistan). The pipeline through Afganistan gives America control of the Caspian Sea oil reserves. Ever wonder... when were they going to sell us on going to war for a regime change in Afganistan? 9/11 was sure convenient in its timing, save dthe administration from having to come up with an excuse for the war...
I'm lost. The news conference from the Iraq defense minister sounded like it was from some alternate Universe. Is this some dream?
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