The Truth Is Out There…Way Out There

Browsing Norman Geras’ excellent blog, I was referred to a Guardian column by leftist UK MP Michael Meacher that manages to approach Hollywood standards of integrity in speech (“Hello,” he lied being the classic example).

Meacher explains it all for us. It’s titled This war on terrorism is bogus, and contends that the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination. Go read it now, and then come on back for some comments.

“Massive attention has now been given – and rightly so – to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.

We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld’s deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush’s younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America’s Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Go read the actual document here.

The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document attributed to Wolfowitz and Libby which said the US must “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”. It refers to key allies such as the UK as “the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership”. It describes peacekeeping missions as “demanding American political leadership rather than that of the UN”. It says “even should Saddam pass from the scene”, US bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently… as “Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has”. It spotlights China for “regime change”, saying “it is time to increase the presence of American forces in SE Asia”.

Note that the earlier document is unsourced by Meacher; it appears to be from the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, excepts of which can be found here.

Meacher then goes on to discuss the current document:

The document also calls for the creation of “US space forces” to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent “enemies” using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons “that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool”.

I especially love the last part, which if true would convict the U.S. of a genocidal policy (which we’ve discussed ad nauseam here; interesting to note the reference in a serious document which I believe we all missed at the time). Unfortunately, the document doesn’t remotely say that. What it says instead is:

Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes. Air warfare may no longer be fought by pilots manning tactical fighter aircraft sweeping the skies of opposing fighters, but a regime dominated by long-range, stealthy unmanned craft. On land, the clash of massive, combined-arms armored forces may be replaced by the dashes of much lighter, stealthier and information-intensive forces, augmented by fleets of robots, some small enough to fit in soldiers’ pockets. Control of the sea could be largely determined not by fleets of surface combatants and aircraft carriers, but from land- and space-based systems, forcing navies to maneuver and fight underwater. Space itself will become a theater of war, as nations gain access to space capabilities and come to rely on them; further, the distinction between military and commercial space systems – combatants and noncombatants – will become blurred. Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces. And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

The report is obviously dealing with the environment U.S. force planners will have to respond to, not the one they will necessarily create. Nowhere in the document does it contemplate a U.S. effort to develop biological weapons; just to respond to their use by others.

He goes to on explain that the 9/11 attacks must have been deliberately accepted by the Bush administration as a lever to move U.S. and world opinion to accept the coming Middle East war.

I tend to avoid the more conspiratorial side of the web, but for now, I’ll just box this claim as a “Bush Knew” claim and set it aside. He explains the theory that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor, and then says:

Similarly the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into “tomorrow’s dominant force” is likely to be a long one in the absence of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”. The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the “go” button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement.

Let’s go back to the document:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. A decision to suspend or terminate aircraft carrier production, as recommended by this report and as justified by the clear direction of military technology, will cause great upheaval. Likewise, systems entering production today – the F-22 fighter, for example – will be in service inventories for decades to come. Wise management of this process will consist in large measure of figuring out the right moments to halt production of current-paradigm weapons and shift to radically new designs. interests or that of its allies in space or the “infosphere” will find it difficult to exert global political leadership.

In Meacher’s world, it sounds deadly and sinister, In reality, it sounds like the kind of disclaimer analysts make continually (ceteris paribus – if everything stays the same).

His explanation for the war is simple. It’s all about the oiiiiilll…we want Iraq for the oil and gas, and we want Afghanistan for … the pipeline.

On one hand, he’s right…a stable Middle East is an important guarantor of a stable world economy, and in fact that alone is enough to give the West a strategic interest there. But I’ll point out the obvious fact that Saddam was willing to sell all the oil he could to anyone, and certainly would have welcomed U.S. interest in exploiting his resources for cash to build more palaces. There are much more economical and effective ways of guaranteeing a supply of oil from people who want to sell it to us than invading them.

He concludes:

The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the “global war on terrorism” has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda – the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course.

Personally, I’d start at the next by-election. He’s an embarrassment to the U.K. and to the left in general.

25 thoughts on “The Truth Is Out There…Way Out There”

  1. I’ve said it before elsewhere and I’ll say it again here.

    There are increasingly two views prevelant in the discourse:

    (1) We are at war.

    (2) We are not at war.

    Each is dealing with a different reality.

    Me, I’m for #1. We have 3000 dead to prove it.

  2. The link to the Guardian Unlimited isn’t working. Any advice? I did a search under the name of the article – no luck.

  3. The most frightening thing I note about Meacher’s piece is that this guy was actually a Minister in the UK government. The second most frightening thing is that the piece is very much in tune with the thinking of our “allies” (scare quotes intended) in France and Germany. And we want these guys to be running the show through the U.N.?

    The U.S. has certainly helped to create a monster that is a grave threat to global security. That monster is the European paradise.

  4. “The U.S. has certainly helped to create a monster that is a grave threat to global security. That monster is the European paradise.”

    Gabriel, I do not have a pleasure of understanding you. Can you elaborate?

  5. I’d forgotten all about the Afgan pipeline bit. That takes me back. They’ve got it all built and running now, right?

  6. Elaboration: Sorry for my being obscure. I think that the Europeans have gotten so used to benefiting (and free-riding) off of the global security that the U.S. provides at considerable cost in blood and treasure that they have become totally deluded in their pacifist, appeasing post-historical paradise (the reference is to Kagan). I call it a monster because they (the French and Germans in particular) have become a menace not only to themselves but also to the badly needed collective security system that all civilized, developed nations urgently must come to agreement on.

  7. Gabriel is right. The US has handled the expenses of military protection for western europe for decades. This has allowed them to divert tax money to social programs. Just last week Sweden announced that they will curtail all military training flights and naval exercises until the end of the year. In addition, the military will only be “open for business” Monday through Friday 9 – 5. (Imagine if the US were to operate this way.) They can do so because ultimately if push came to shove, we would bail them out.

    The european hunger for the pleasures of immense social programs has made them complascent. They see things in terms that we would not understand in the US. I know Sweden well, and they once printed an article (not at all tongue in cheek) about a woman on welfare decrying the fact that she couldn’t afford to go on holiday to places like Ibiza like other Swedes NOT on welfare could.

    Europeans have enjoyed bashing the US for decades and the average American has taken this in stride or been unaware. Recent circumstances have represented a sea change in the views of “average Americans” who are now seriously questioning the values of Europe and the value of our relationship with Europe.

    While anti-American rhetoric is nothing new, what is dangerous is that it misleads and focus hatred on the one ideology that can actually make a difference in the war on terror. While this exact same attitude existed during the Cold War, the soviets were not Islamic terrorists. The Soviets valued their own lives and that was the disincentive to aggression. The Islamic terrorists do NOT value their own lives and you cannot deal with them in the same manner as the Soviets. If you have Europe constantly undermining the goals of the US, the principles of divide and conquer are achieved – which would play nicely into the hands of Islamic extremists…

  8. Thanks for restoring the link…

    I see from reading it that this “MP” believes and implies that the US deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen…He quotes some supposed rule that the FAA is required to assemble military jets if any aircraft strays X number of miles off course. While that may be the case today, it was most certainly not the case pre-9/11. How many times have we heard of flights landing at the wrong airports etc.

    In “pleading” his case for complicity of the US government in 9/11 he relies on the willingness of many Europeans to believe the worst of the US and their general ignorance on the matters of which he speaks. And with the Guardian having a large following all across Europe, he gets the “credibility” for his warped view point.

    It should be remembered the the Guardian was successfully incorporated into the KGB propoganda network and the KGB congratulated itself on this accomplishment.

  9. This piece was published in the Observer, not the Guardian. Though the two papers share cyberspace and have offices in the same building, they are separately staffed.

    The Observer even editorialy supported Bush’s war in Iraq.

    The points raised by Meacher are very serious. Most of them are left unanswered.

  10. The Guardian will print anything they are paid to print. It is why you will find the occasional “right wing” American in it’s pages.

  11. I didn’t know the Observer was in on the gravy train too.

    This is a serious unanswered point.

    Live and learn I always say.

  12. mt-

    So things that I find on the web labelled ‘The Guardian’ (tagline under Meacher’s name)may have been published in the ‘The Observer’? Is there any way for us to tell online?

    The points raised by Meacher are very serious. Most of them are left unanswered.

    OK, which ones??

    I’ve specifically been through his analyses of the PNAC piece, which are pretty central to his argument.

    I’ve went through the cites from the 1992 DPG document, and my comments map to the PNAC comments.

    This leaves him with two charges…”Bush knew” and “it’s about oil”.

    I’ve tended to stay away from the ‘Bush knew’ stuff because … well, because I have an inherent doubt of conspiracy thinking. At some point I’ll roll up my cuffs and wade in, but no time soon.

    And as to ‘it’s about oil’, my comments – that Saddam would have sold US oil companies all the oil they wanted at almost any price we would have given him – stand. We didn’t need to invade him, or anyone else, to get the oil.

    So what am I missing?

    A.L.

  13. Meacher does not raise “points” that are susceptible of “answers”. The only serious issue is why people like Meacher exist, what is the cause of their thinking, and what do we do about them. I am also both fascinated and dismayed at how widespread Meacherism (and milder variants) are in the country that is our staunchest ally. Imagine what it’s like on the continent – France and Germany being but leading examples.

    Even the support given the U.S.-led fight against terrorism and roguery from Britain, Spain, Italy, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe – indeed most of the European countries (not to mention the leading Asian countries) – was more a function of the courage and willingness of their leaders to lead, despite, not because of, popular opinion, which is infected with Meacherism. By definition, France and Germany are led by the cowards they deserve. Europe is the key battleground for hearts and minds, and plain common sense. In a sense, it precedes the Islamic world. Without European cooperation and elementary attachment to reality, we are in for a hard time.

    That is thoroughly depressing. We are somewhere in the midst of 1943, much of Europe still thinks it’s 1938. Can George Bush finesse the stupidity rampant throughout Europe? Can anybody?

  14. Gabriel,

    You see the image and you mistake it for the thing. The words of Meacher’s rant are irrelevant and mean nothing in any literal sense, even to Meacher and “Meacherists.” Analyzing them will therefore get you (and A.L. too) nowhere. They are a mere construct of convenience.

    Look underneath. The words are merely a cloak for the feeling – and the form may change, but the energy beneath does not. If you’ve met and talked to a few “Meacherists,” you’ll recognize it.

    The emotion and energy in question is hate, pure and simple. This article is simply one expression of it. Trying to argue someone out of it rationally is like trying to rationally convince a Ku Klux Klansman to like black people.

    Hate cannot be finessed, only fought. It can only have its consequences made clear, and thus create enough of a deterrent to cause a public retreat and make gaining new adherents for it more difficult.

    The Europeans prefer to feed theirs instead – and unsurprisingly, to feed the hate of others as well. The one leads to other, a truth which is part of the reason that I’m are truly, deeply concerned for Europe’s future. And to the extent that it affects us, concerned for ours as well.

  15. Meacher’s theory is far from the only one of its type. More people than you may think believe this kind of thing. They aren’t all in Europe, either. It may be a “construct of convenience” for Meacher, but a lot of people nod their heads. They really believe these things. They buy into it.

    Gabriel – it would be one thing if France and Germany wanted to live that way themselves. They want to impose it on us, too. That’s where it becomes monsterous. They complain of being bullied because we resist letting them make us like them.

    France and Germany are not acting like friends. Here is a good Kagan interview from Ben Wattenberg’s show last week:

    http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1122.html

  16. Joe,

    I realize fully (and therefore agree with you) that it is not the “thing” but the “image” and everything underlying that image. I’m less sure about your other point about analyzing them will get you nowhere. (I use the term “Meacherism”, sort of half sarcastically here, broadly to mean the deluded thinking in Europe that looks for explanations other than the obvious and inescapable ones, to explain jihadist terrorism and the fight against it.) In any event, Meacherism, as you have so aptly pointed out, is a fact of life. You have to come up with a strategy to deal with it with the hand you’ve been dealt.

    I remember re: Gulf War I Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s famous (or it should be famous) statement that, if it hadn’t been for the fall of the Berlin Wall, the UNSC vote on the vote on that war would have gone the U.S. and the U.K. in favor, Russia and China against, and our good friends the French abstaining, of course. The French have long been irredeemably Anti-American and opportunistic and will remain so.

    But I also recall, re: Gulf War I, the following: In Paris, the main entertainment guide is called “Le Pariscope”. It rates films that come out by showing the ratings from the top 13 newspaper, magazine and television reviewers in the French media, from the right wing Le Figaro to the Communist Party mouthpiece L’HumanitĂ©. Each film is rated 1 to 3 stars, so the highest possible rating for a film would be 39 stars, ie, a maximum possible 3 star rating from each of the 13 critics.

    Only one film has ever attained such a maximum rating in history since the Pariscope began publishing many decades ago. That film was “Dances with Wolves”, starring Kevin Costner – every political and cultural faction in the French intelligentsia gave it the maximum mark. The film has all of the elements to appeal to a broad Anti-American French audience: Rousseau’s noble savages – the good guys – being brutalized by the Yahoos of the imperialist U.S. army. It’s perfect.

    “Dances with Wolves” came out in France in mid-February 1991. A few days later, the French Division Daguet was invading Iraq alonside U.S. troops in the liberation of Kuwait. A limited, but telling, example.

  17. An office mate dropped this cornucopia of all the 9/11 conspiracy theories on my desk this afternoon. I read it and my first response to him was to yell about the “FDR Knew” (a personal pet peeve – it’s 50 year old Republican propaganda – but good propaganda never dies).

    Then I asked him if he believed the core idea – that the Bush and Clinton (who appointed the heads of the CIA, FBI, and Chief of Joint Staff?) administrations had conspired to kill 3000 Americans to achieve Global Hegomony….AND all the OIL?

    I started to tear into the piece but he wanted more back up. He thought a Labour backbencher had a lot of credibility. I started to assemble the documents – the PNAC, the NORAD scramble timelines from 9/11, ect. Then I relized that this wouldn’t convince him. As Joe mentions – it isn’t about 9/11 or even the truth. It is a feeling – in my office mate’s case, a hatred of Bush and company.

    So tomorrow when he asks for my response I’ll brush this aside and avoid getting riled up. He is friend – even if a temporarily deranged one.
    Such are the time we live in.

  18. yeah im not so sure all these deranged people are only temporarily so. i think they may need a dose or ten of highly intrusive reality. preferably in horse-sized enema form.

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