by Andrew Gavin Marshall
from
GlobalResearch Website
|
Andrew Gavin Marshall is a
Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
He is currently studying Political Economy and History at Simon
Fraser University. |
Part 1
October 16, 2009
Introduction
In the face of total global economic collapse, the prospects of a massive
international war are increasing. Historically, periods of imperial decline
and economic crisis are marked by increased international violence and war.
The decline of the great European empires was
marked by World War I and World War II, with the Great Depression taking
place in the intermediary period.
Currently, the world is witnessing the decline
of the American empire, itself a product born out of World War II. As the
post-war imperial hegemon, America ran the international monetary system and
reigned as champion and arbitrator of the global political economy.
To manage the global political economy, the US has created the single
largest and most powerful military force in world history. Constant control
over the global economy requires constant military presence and action.
Now that both the American empire and global political economy are in
decline and collapse, the prospect of a violent end to the American imperial
age is drastically increasing.
This essay is broken into three separate parts.
-
The first part covers US-NATO
geopolitical strategy since the end of the Cold War, at the
beginning of the New World Order, outlining the western imperial
strategy that led to the war in Yugoslavia and the “War
on Terror.”
-
Part 2 analyzes the nature of “soft
revolutions” or “colour revolutions” in US imperial strategy,
focusing on establishing hegemony over Eastern Europe and Central
Asia.
-
Part 3 analyzes the nature of the
imperial strategy to construct a New World Order, focusing on the
increasing conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Latin America,
Eastern Europe and Africa; and the potential these conflicts have
for starting a new world war with China and Russia.
Defining a New
Imperial Strategy
In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, US-NATO foreign policy had
to re-imagine its role in the world.
The Cold War served as a means of justifying US
imperialist expansion across the globe with the aim of “containing” the
Soviet threat. NATO itself was created and existed for the sole purpose of
forging an anti-Soviet alliance. With the USSR gone, NATO had no reason to
exist, and the US had to find a new purpose for its imperialist strategy in
the world.
In 1992, the US Defense Department, under the leadership of Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney [later to be George Bush Jr.’s VP], had the
Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz
[later to be George Bush Jr.’s Deputy Secretary of Defense and President of
the World Bank], write up a defense document to guide American foreign
policy in the post-Cold War era, commonly referred to as the “New World
Order.”
The Defense Planning Guidance document was leaked in 1992, and
revealed that,
“In a broad new policy statement that is in
its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s
political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to
ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe,
Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union,” and that, “The
classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one
superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior
and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations
from challenging American primacy.”
Further, “the new draft sketches a world in
which there is one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain
the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to
a larger regional or global role’.”
Among the necessary challenges to American
supremacy, the document,
“postulated regional wars against Iraq and
North Korea,” and identified China and Russia as its major threats.
It further, “suggests that the United States
could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations
security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait
and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf.” [1]
NATO and Yugoslavia
The wars in Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s served as a justification for
the continued existence of NATO in the world, and to expand American
imperial interests in Eastern Europe.
The
World Bank and
IMF set the stage for the destabilization
of Yugoslavia. After long-time dictator of Yugoslavia, Josip Tito, died in
1980, a leadership crisis developed.
In 1982, American foreign policy officials
organized a set of IMF and World Bank loans, under the newly created
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), to handle the crisis of the $20
billion US debt.
The effect of the loans, under the SAP, was that
they,
“wreaked economic and political havoc... The
economic crisis threatened political stability ... it also threatened to
aggravate simmering ethnic tensions.” [2]
In 1989, Slobodan Milosevic became
President of Serbia, the largest and most powerful of all the Yugoslav
republics.
Also in 1989, Yugoslavia’s Premier traveled to
the US to meet President
George H.W. Bush in order to negotiate another financial aid
package. In 1990, the World Bank/IMF program began, and the Yugoslav state’s
expenditures went towards debt repayment.
As a result, social programs were dismantled,
the currency devalued, wages frozen, and prices rose.
The “reforms fueled secessionist tendencies
that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually
ensuring the de facto secession of the republic,” leading to Croatia and
Slovenia’s succession in 1991.[3]
In 1990, US the intelligence community released
a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), predicting that Yugoslavia
would break apart, erupt in civil war, and the report then placed blame on
Serbian President Milosevic for the coming destabilization.[4]
In 1991, conflict broke out between Yugoslavia and Croatia, when it, too,
declared independence. A ceasefire was reached in 1992. Yet, the Croats
continued small military offensives until 1995, as well as participating in
the war in Bosnia. In 1995, Operation Storm was undertaken by Croatia to try
to retake the Krajina region.
A Croatian general was recently put on trial at
The Hague for war crimes during this battle, which was key to driving the
Serbs out of Croatia and “cemented Croatian independence.”
The US supported the operation and the CIA
actively provided intelligence to Croat forces, leading to the displacement
of between 150,000 and 200,000 Serbs, largely through means of murder,
plundering, burning villages and ethnic cleansing.[5] The
Croatian Army was trained by US advisers, and the general on trial was even
personally supported by the CIA.[6]
The Clinton administration gave the “green light” to Iran to arm the Bosnian
Muslims and,
“from 1992 to January 1996, there was an
influx of Iranian weapons and advisers into Bosnia.”
Further, “Iran, and other Muslim states,
helped to bring Mujihadeen fighters into Bosnia to fight with the
Muslims against the Serbs, 'holy warriors' from Afghanistan, Chechnya,
Yemen and Algeria, some of whom had suspected links with Osama bin
Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.”
It was,
“Western intervention in the Balkans [that]
exacerbated tensions and helped to sustain hostilities. By recognizing
the claims of separatist republics and groups in 1990/1991. Western
elites - the American, British, French and German - undermined
government structures in Yugoslavia, increased insecurities, inflamed
conflict and heightened ethnic tensions.
And by offering logistical support to
various sides during the war, Western intervention sustained the
conflict into the mid-1990s. Clinton's choice of the Bosnian Muslims as
a cause to champion on the international stage, and his administration's
demands that the UN arms embargo be lifted so that the Muslims and
Croats could be armed against the Serbs, should be viewed in this
light.” [7]
During the war in Bosnia, there,
“was a vast secret conduit of weapons
smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies
of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist
groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah.”
Further, “the secret services of Ukraine,
Greece and Israel were busy arming the Bosnian Serbs.” [8]
Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, also ran
arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims and Croatia to fight against the
Serbs.[9]
The US had influenced the war in the region in a variety of ways. As the
Observer reported in 1995, a major facet of their involvement was through,
“Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI),
a Virginia-based American private company of retired generals and
intelligence officers. The American embassy in Zagreb admits that MPRI
is training the Croats, on licence from the US government.”
Further, The Dutch “were convinced that US
special forces were involved in training the Bosnian army and the
Bosnian Croat Army (HVO).” [10]
As far back as 1988, the leader of Croatia met
with the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to create “a joint policy to
break up Yugoslavia,” and bring Slovenia and Croatia into the “German
economic zone.”
So, US Army officers were dispatched to Croatia,
Bosnia, Albania, and Macedonia as “advisers” and brought in US Special
Forces to help.[11] During the nine-month cease-fire in the war
in Bosnia-Herzegovina, six US generals met with Bosnian army leaders to plan
the Bosnian offensive that broke the cease-fire.[12]
In 1996, the Albanian Mafia, in collaboration with the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA), a militant guerilla organization, took control over the
enormous Balkan heroin trafficking routes. The KLA was linked to former
Afghan Mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden.[13]
In 1997, the KLA began fighting against Serbian forces,[14] and
in 1998, the US State Department removed the KLA from its list of terrorist
organizations.[15] Before and after 1998, the KLA was receiving
arms, training and support from the US and NATO, and Clinton’s Secretary of
State, Madeline Albright, had a close political relationship with KLA
leader Hashim Thaci.[16]
Both the CIA and German intelligence, the BND, supported the KLA terrorists
in Yugoslavia prior to and after the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The
BND had KLA contacts since the early 1990s, the same period that the KLA was
establishing its Al-Qaeda contacts.[17] KLA members were trained
by Osama bin Laden at training camps in Afghanistan.
Even the UN stated that much of the violence
that occurred came from KLA members, “especially those allied with Hashim
Thaci.” [18]
The March 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo was justified on the pretense of
putting an end to Serbian oppression of Kosovo Albanians, which was termed
genocide. The Clinton Administration made claims that at least 100,000
Kosovo Albanians were missing and “may have been killed” by the Serbs.
Bill Clinton personally compared events in
Kosovo to the Holocaust. The US State Department had stated that up to
500,000 Albanians were feared dead. Eventually, the official estimate was
reduced to 10,000, however, after exhaustive investigations, it was revealed
that the death of less than 2,500 Albanians could be attributed to the
Serbs.
During the NATO bombing campaign, between 400
and 1,500 Serb civilians were killed, and NATO committed war crimes,
including the bombing of a Serb TV station and a hospital.[19]
In 2000, the US State Department, in cooperation with the American
Enterprise Institute, AEI, held a conference on Euro-Atlantic integration in
Slovakia. Among the participants were many heads of state, foreign affairs
officials and ambassadors of various European states as well as UN and NATO
officials.[20] A letter of correspondence between a German
politician present at the meeting and the German Chancellor, revealed the
true nature of NATO’s campaign in Kosovo.
The conference demanded a speedy declaration of
independence for Kosovo, and that the war in Yugoslavia was waged in order
to enlarge NATO, Serbia was to be excluded permanently from European
development to justify a US military presence in the region, and expansion
was ultimately designed to contain Russia.[21]
Of great significance was that,
“the war created a raison d'être for the
continued existence of NATO in a post-Cold War world, as it desperately
tried to justify its continued existence and desire for expansion.”
Further, “The Russians had assumed NATO
would dissolve at the end of the Cold War. Instead, not only has NATO
expanded, it went to war over an internal dispute in a Slavic Eastern
European country.”
This was viewed as a great threat. Thus,
“much of the tense relations between the
United States and Russia over the past decade can be traced to the 1999
war on Yugoslavia.” [22]
The War on Terror and
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
When Bill Clinton became President, the neo-conservative hawks from
the George H.W. Bush administration formed a think tank called the
Project for the New American Century, or
PNAC.
In 2000, they published a report called,
Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and
Resources for a New Century.
Building upon the Defense Policy Guidance
document, they state that,
“the United States must retain sufficient
forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale
wars.” [23]
Further, there is “need to retain sufficient
combat forces to fight and win, multiple, nearly simultaneous major
theatre wars,” [24] and that “the Pentagon needs to begin to
calculate the force necessary to protect, independently, US interests in
Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all times.” [25]
Interestingly, the document stated that,
“the United States has for decades sought to
play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. 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.” [26]
However, in advocating for massive increases in
defense spending and expanding the American empire across the globe,
including the forceful destruction of multiple countries through major
theatre wars, the report stated that,
“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.” [27]
That event came one year later with the events
of 9/11. Many of the authors of the report and members of the Project for
the New American Century had become officials in the Bush
administration, and were conveniently in place to enact their “Project”
after they got their “new
Pearl Harbor.”
The plans for war were,
“already under development by far right
Think Tanks in the 1990s, organizations in which cold-war warriors from
the inner circle of the secret services, from evangelical churches, from
weapons corporations and oil companies forged shocking plans for a new
world order.”
To do this,
“the USA would need to use all means -
diplomatic, economic and military, even wars of aggression - to have
long term control of the resources of the planet and the ability to keep
any possible rival weak.”
Among the people involved in PNAC and the plans
for empire,
“Dick Cheney - Vice President, Lewis Libby -
Cheney's Chief of Staff, Donald Rumsfeld - Defence Minister, Paul
Wolfowitz - Rumsfeld's deputy, Peter Rodman - in charge of 'Matters of
Global Security', John Bolton - State Secretary for Arms Control,
Richard Armitage - Deputy Foreign Minister, Richard Perle - former
Deputy Defence Minister under Reagan, now head of the Defense Policy
Board, William Kristol - head of the PNAC and adviser to Bush, known as
the brains of the President, Zalmay Khalilzad,” who became Ambassador to
both Afghanistan and Iraq following the regime changes in those
countries.[28]
Brzezinski’s “Grand
Chessboard”
Arch-hawk strategist,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the
Trilateral Commission with
David Rockefeller, former National
Security Adviser and key foreign policy architect in Jimmy Carter’s
administration, also wrote a book on American geostrategy.
Brzezinski is also a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations and the
Bilderberg Group, and has also been a board
member of Amnesty International, the Atlantic Council and the National
Endowment for Democracy. Currently, he is a trustee and counselor at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),
a major US policy think tank.
In his 1997 book,
The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski outlined a
strategy for America in the world.
He wrote,
“For America, the chief geopolitical prize
is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated by
Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional
domination and reached out for global power.”
Further, “how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is
critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically
axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s
three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance
at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost
automatically entail African subordination.” [29]
He continued in outlining a strategy for
American empire, stating that,
“it is imperative that no Eurasian
challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also
challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated
Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of
this book.” [30]
He explained that,
“Two basic steps are thus required: first,
to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the
power to cause a potentially important shift in the international
distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of
their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their
seeking to attain them: [and] second, to formulate specific U.S.
policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above.” [31]
What this means is that is it of primary
importance to first identify states that could potentially be a pivot upon
which the balance of power in the region exits the US sphere of influence;
and secondly, to “offset, co-opt, and/or control” such states and
circumstances. An example of this would be Iran; being one of the world’s
largest oil producers, and in a strategically significant position in the
axis of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Iran could hold the potential to alter the
balance of power in Eurasia if it were to closely ally itself with Russia or
China, or both – giving those nations a heavy supply of oil as well as a
sphere of influence in the Gulf, thus challenging American hegemony in the
region.
Brzezinski removed all subtlety from his imperial leanings, and
wrote,
“To put it in a terminology that harkens
back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand
imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and
maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries
pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
[32]
Brzezinski referred to the Central Asian
republics as the “Eurasian Balkans,” writing that,
“Moreover, they [the Central Asian
Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and
historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more
powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also
signaling an increasing political interest in the region.
But the Eurasian Balkans are
infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous
concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region,
in addition to important minerals, including gold.” [33]
He further wrote that,
“It follows that America's primary interest
is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this
geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered
financial and economic access to it.” [34]
This is a clear example of America’s role as an
engine of empire; with foreign imperial policy designed to maintain US
strategic positions, but primarily and “infinitely more important,” is to
secure an “economic prize” for “the global community.” In other words,
the United States is an imperial hegemon working for international financial
interests.
Brzezinski also warned that,
“the United States may have to determine how
to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of
Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power,”
[35] and he, “puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order
to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually
seek to challenge America's primacy.”
Thus, “The most immediate task is to make
certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to
expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly
its decisive arbitration role.” [36]
The War on Terror and
Surplus Imperialism
In 2000, the Pentagon released a document called
Joint Vision 2020, which outlined a project
to achieve what they termed, “Full Spectrum Dominance,” as the blueprint for
the Department of Defense in the future.
“Full-spectrum dominance means the ability
of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary
and control any situation across the range of military operations.”
The report “addresses full-spectrum
dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major
theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous
situations like peacekeeping and non-combat humanitarian relief.”
Further, “The development of a global
information grid will provide the environment for decision superiority.”
[37]
As political economist, Ellen Wood,
explained,
“Boundless domination of a global economy,
and of the multiple states that administer it, requires military action
without end, in purpose or time.” [38]
Further, “Imperial dominance in a global
capitalist economy requires a delicate and contradictory balance between
suppressing competition and maintaining conditions in competing
economies that generate markets and profit. This is one of the most
fundamental contradictions of the new world order.” [39]
Following
9/11,
the “Bush doctrine” was put in place, which called for,
“a unilateral and exclusive right to
preemptive attack, any time, anywhere, unfettered by any international
agreements, to ensure that ‘[o]ur forces will be strong enough to
dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hope
of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States’.” [40]
NATO undertook its first ground invasion of any
nation in its entire history, with the October 2001 invasion and occupation
of Afghanistan.
The Afghan war was in fact, planned prior to the
events of 9/11, with the breakdown of major pipeline deals between major
western oil companies and the Taliban. The war itself was planned over the
summer of 2001 with the operational plan to go to war by mid-October.[41]
Afghanistan is extremely significant in geopolitical terms, as,
“Transporting all the Caspian basin's fossil
fuel through Russia or Azerbaijan would greatly enhance Russia's
political and economic control over the central Asian republics, which
is precisely what the west has spent 10 years trying to prevent. Piping
it through Iran would enrich a regime which the US has been seeking to
isolate.
Sending it the long way round through China,
quite aside from the strategic considerations, would be prohibitively
expensive. But pipelines through Afghanistan would allow the US both to
pursue its aim of ‘diversifying energy supply’ and to penetrate the
world's most lucrative markets.” [42]
As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed
out a mere two weeks following the 9/11 attacks,
“Beyond American determination to hit back
against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, beyond the likelihood
of longer, drawn-out battles producing more civilian casualties in the
months and years ahead, the hidden stakes in the war against terrorism
can be summed up in a single word: oil.”
Explaining further,
“The map of terrorist sanctuaries and
targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary
degree, a map of the world's principal energy sources in the 21st
century. The defense of these energy resources - rather than a simple
confrontation between Islam and the West - will be the primary flash
point of global conflict for decades to come.”
Among the many notable states where there is a
crossover between terrorism and oil and gas reserves of vital importance to
the United States and the West, are Saudi Arabia, Libya, Bahrain, the Gulf
Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and Algeria, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan,
Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia and eastern Turkey.
Importantly,
“this region accounts for more than 65
percent of the world's oil and natural gas production.”
Further, “It is inevitable that the war
against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America's
Chevron, ExxonMobil and Arco; France's TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum;
Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of
billions of dollars of investment in the region.” [43]
It’s no secret that the Iraq war had much to do
with oil. In the summer of 2001, Dick Cheney convened an Energy Task Force,
which was a highly secret set of meetings in which energy policy was
determined for the United States.
In the meetings and in various other means of
communication, Cheney and his aides met with top officials and
executives of Shell Oil, British Petroleum (BP), Exxon Mobil, Chevron,
Conoco, and Chevron.[44]
At the meeting, which took place before 9/11
and before there was any mention of a war on Iraq, documents of Iraqi
oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals were presented and discussed,
and,
“Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates (UAE)
documents likewise feature a map of each country’s oilfields, pipelines,
refineries and tanker terminals.” [45]
Both Royal Dutch Shell and British
Petroleum have since received major oil contracts to develop Iraqi
oilfields.[46]
The war on Iraq, as well as the war on Afghanistan, also largely serve
specifically American, and more broadly, Western imperial-strategic
interests in the region. In particular, the wars were strategically designed
to eliminate, threaten or contain regional powers, as well as to directly
install several dozen military bases in the region, firmly establishing an
imperial presence.
The purpose of this is largely aimed at other
major regional players and specifically, encircling Russia and China and
threatening their access to the regions oil and gas reserves.
Iran is now surrounded, with Iraq on one side,
and Afghanistan on the other.
Concluding Remarks
Part 1 of this essay outlined the US-NATO imperial strategy for entering the
New
World Order, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The primary aim was focused on encircling Russia and China and preventing
the rise of a new superpower.
The US was to act as the imperial hegemony,
serving international financial interests in imposing the New World Order.
The next part to this essay examines the “colour revolutions” throughout
Eastern Europe and Central Asia, continuing the US and NATO policy of
containing Russia and China; while controlling access to major natural gas
reserves and transportation routes.
The “colour revolutions” have been a pivotal
force in geopolitical imperial strategy, and analyzing them is key to
understanding the New World Order.
Endnotes
[1] Tyler, Patrick E. U.S. Strategy Plan
Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop: A One Superpower World. The New
York Times: March 8, 1992. http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm
[2] Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia.
Duke University Press, 2002: Page 28
Michel Chossudovsky, Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Global Research: February 19, 2002: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=370
[3] Michel Chossudovsky, Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Global Research: February 19, 2002: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=370
[4] David Binder, Yugoslavia Seen Breaking Up Soon. The New York Times:
November 28, 1990
[5] Ian Traynor, Croat general on trial for war crimes. The Guardian:
March 12, 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/12/warcrimes.balkans
[6] Adam LeBor, Croat general Ante Gotovina stands trial for war crimes.
The Times Online: March 11, 2008: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3522828.ece
[7] Brendan O’Neill, 'You are only allowed to see Bosnia in black and
white'. Spiked: January 23, 2004: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA374.htm
[8] Richard J. Aldrich, America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian
Muslims. The Guardian: April 22, 2002: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/22/warcrimes.comment/print
[9] Tim Judah, German spies accused of arming Bosnian Muslims. The
Telegraph: April 20, 1997: http://www.serbianlinks.freehosting.net/german.htm
[10] Charlotte Eagar, Invisible US Army defeats Serbs. The Observer:
November 5, 1995: http://charlotte-eagar.com/stories/balkans110595.shtml
[11] Gary Wilson, New reports show secret U.S. role in Balkan war.
Workers World News Service: 1996: http://www.workers.org/ww/1997/bosnia.html
[12] IAC, The CIA Role in Bosnia. International Action Center: http://www.iacenter.org/bosnia/ciarole.htm
[13] History Commons, Serbia and Montenegro: 1996-1999: Albanian Mafia
and KLA Take Control of Balkan Heroin Trafficking Route. The Center for
Cooperative Research: http://www.historycommons.org/topic.jsp?topic=country_serbia_and_montenegro
[14] History Commons, Serbia and Montenegro: 1997: KLA Surfaces to
Resist Serbian Persecution of Albanians. The Center for Cooperative
Research: http://www.historycommons.org/topic.jsp?topic=country_serbia_and_montenegro
[15] History Commons, Serbia and Montenegro: February 1998: State
Department Removes KLA from Terrorism List. The Center for Cooperative
Research: http://www.historycommons.org/topic.jsp?topic=country_serbia_and_montenegro
[16] Marcia Christoff Kurop, Al Qaeda's Balkan Links. The Wall Street
Journal: November 1, 2001: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/561291/posts
[17] Global Research, German Intelligence and the CIA supported Al Qaeda
sponsored Terrorists in Yugoslavia. Global Research: February 20, 2005:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=431
[18] Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo: The US and the EU support a Political
Process linked to Organized Crime. Global Research: February 12, 2008:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8055
[19] Andrew Gavin Marshall, Breaking Yugoslavia. Geopolitical Monitor:
July 21, 2008: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/content/backgrounders/2008-07-21/breaking-yugoslavia/
[20] AEI, Is Euro-Atlantic Integration Still on Track? Participant List.
American Enterprise Institute: April 28-30, 2000: http://www.aei.org/research/nai/events/pageID.440,projectID.11/default.asp
[21] Aleksandar Pavi, Correspondence between German Politicians Reveals
the Hidden Agenda behind Kosovo's "Independence". Global Research: March
12, 2008: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8304
[22] Stephen Zunes, The War on Yugoslavia, 10 Years Later. Foreign
Policy in Focus: April 6, 2009: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6017
[23] PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses. Project for the New American
Century: September 2000, page 6: http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm
[24] Ibid. Page 8
[25] Ibid. Page 9
[26] Ibid. Page 14
[27] Ibid. Page 51
[28] Margo Kingston, A think tank war: Why old Europe says no. The
Sydney Morning Herald: March 7, 2003: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826528748.html
[29] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Pages 30-31
[30] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page xiv
[31] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 41
[32] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 40
[33] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 124
[34] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 148
[35] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 55
[36] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 198
[37] Jim Garamone, Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance.
American Forces Press Service: June 2, 2000:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289
[38] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 144
[39] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 157
[40] Ellen Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 160
[41] Andrew G. Marshall, Origins of Afghan War. Geopolitical Monitor:
September 14, 2008:
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/content/backgrounders/2008-09-14/origins-of-the-afghan-war/
[42] George Monbiot, America's pipe dream. The Guardian: October 23,
2001:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/23/afghanistan.terrorism11
[43] Frank Viviano, Energy future rides on U.S. war. San Francisco
Chronicle: September 26, 2001:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/26/MN70983.DTL
[44] Dana Milbank and Justin Blum, Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With
Cheney Task Force. Washington Post: November 16, 2005:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842_pf.html
[45] Judicial Watch, CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF
IRAQI OILFIELDS. Commerce Department: July 17, 2003: http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_iraqi-oilfield-pr.shtml
[46] TERRY MACALISTER, Criticism as Shell signs $4bn Iraq oil deal. Mail
and Guardian: September 30, 2008: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-09-30-criticism-as-shell-signs-4bn-iraq-oil-deal
Al-Jazeera, BP group wins Iraq oil contract. Al Jazeera Online: June 30,
2009:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200963093615637434.html
Part 2
Color-Coded Revolutions and the Origins of World War III
November 3, 2009
Introduction
Following US geo-strategy in what
Brzezinski termed the “global Balkans,” the US government has
worked closely with major NGOs to “promote democracy” and “freedom” in
former Soviet republics, playing a role behind the scenes in fomenting what
are termed “colour revolutions,” which install US and Western-friendly
puppet leaders to advance the interests of the West, both economically and
strategically.
Part 2 of this essay on “The Origins of World
War III” analyzes the color revolutions as being a key stratagem in
imposing the US-led New World Order.
The “colour revolution” or “soft” revolution
strategy is
-
a covert political tactic of expanding
NATO and US influence to the borders of Russia and even China
-
following in line with one of the
primary aims of US strategy in the New World Order: to contain China
and Russia and prevent the rise of any challenge to US power in the
region.
These revolutions are portrayed in the western
media as popular democratic revolutions, in which the people of these
respective nations demand democratic accountability and governance from
their despotic leaders and archaic political systems.
However, the reality is far from what this
utopian imagery suggests. Western NGOs and media heavily finance and
organize opposition groups and protest movements, and in the midst of an
election, create a public perception of vote fraud in order to mobilize the
mass protest movements to demand “their” candidate be put into power. It
just so happens that “their” candidate is always the Western US-favored
candidate, whose campaign is often heavily financed by Washington; and who
proposes US-friendly policies and neoliberal economic conditions.
In the end, it is the people who lose out, as
their genuine hope for change and accountability is denied by the influence
the US wields over their political leaders.
The soft revolutions also have the effect of antagonizing China and Russia,
specifically, as it places US protectorates on their borders, and drives
many of the former Warsaw Pact nations to seek closer political, economic
and military cooperation.
This then exacerbates tensions between the west
and China and Russia; which ultimately leads the world closer to a potential
conflict between the two blocs.
Serbia
Serbia experienced its “colour revolution” in October of 2000, which led to
the overthrow of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
As the Washington Post reported in
December of 2000, from 1999 on, the US undertook a major “electoral
strategy” to oust Milosevic, as,
“U.S.-funded consultants played a crucial
role behind the scenes in virtually every facet of the anti-Milosevic
drive, running tracking polls, training thousands of opposition
activists and helping to organize a vitally important parallel vote
count. U.S. taxpayers paid for 5,000 cans of spray paint used by student
activists to scrawl anti-Milosevic graffiti on walls across Serbia, and
2.5 million stickers with the slogan "He's Finished," which became the
revolution's catchphrase.”
Further, according to Michael Dobbs,
writing in the Washington Post, some,
“20 opposition leaders accepted an
invitation from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI)
in October 1999 to a seminar at the Marriott Hotel in Budapest.”
Interestingly,
“Some Americans involved in the
anti-Milosevic effort said they were aware of CIA activity at the
fringes of the campaign, but had trouble finding out what the agency was
up to. Whatever it was, they concluded it was not particularly
effective. The lead role was taken by the State Department and the U.S.
Agency for International Development, the government's foreign
assistance agency, which channeled the funds through commercial
contractors and nonprofit groups such as NDI and its Republican
counterpart, the International Republican Institute (IRI).”
The
NDI (National Democratic Institute),
“worked closely with Serbian opposition
parties, IRI focused its attention on Otpor, which served as the
revolution's ideological and organizational backbone. In March, IRI paid
for two dozen Otpor leaders to attend a seminar on nonviolent resistance
at the Hilton Hotel in Budapest.”
At the seminar,
“the Serbian students received training in
such matters as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with
symbols, how to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a
dictatorial regime.” [1]
As the New York Times revealed, Otpor,
the major student opposition group, had a steady flow of money coming from
the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a Congress-funded
“democracy promoting” organization.
The United States Agency for International
Development (USAID)
gave money to
Otpor, as did the International
Republican Institute,
“another nongovernmental Washington group
financed partly by A.I.D.” [2]
Georgia
In 2003, Georgia went through its “Rose Revolution,” which led to the
overthrow of president Eduard Shevardnadze, replacing him with Mikhail
Saakashvili after the 2004 elections.
In a November 2003 article in The Globe and
Mail, it was reported that a US based foundation “began laying the
brickwork for the toppling of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze,” as
funds from his non-profit organization “sent a 31-year-old Tbilisi activist
named Giga Bokeria to Serbia to meet with members of the Otpor (Resistance)
movement and learn how they used street demonstrations to topple dictator
Slobodan Milosevic.
Then, in the summer,
"the foundation paid for a return trip to
Georgia by Otpor activists, who ran three-day courses teaching more than
1,000 students how to stage a peaceful revolution.”
This US-based foundation,
“also funded a popular opposition television
station that was crucial in mobilizing support for [the] ‘velvet
revolution,’ and [it] reportedly gave financial support to a youth group
that led the street protests.” The owner of the foundation “has a
warm relationship with Mr. Shevardnadze's chief opponent, Mikhail
Saakashvili, a New York-educated lawyer who is expected to win the
presidency in an election scheduled for Jan. 4.”
During a press conference a week before his
resignation, Mr. Shevardnadze said that the US foundation “is set against
the President of Georgia.”
Moreover,
“Mr. Bokeria, whose Liberty Institute
received money from both [the financier’s foundation] and the U.S.
government-backed Eurasia Institute, says three other organizations
played key roles in Mr. Shevardnadze's downfall: Mr. Saakashvili's
National Movement party, the Rustavi-2 television station and Kmara!
(Georgian for Enough!), a youth group that declared war on Mr.
Shevardnadze [in] April and began a poster and graffiti campaign
attacking government corruption.” [3]
The day following the publication of the
previously quoted article, the author published another article in the
Globe and Mail explaining that the,
“bloodless revolution” in Georgia “smells
more like another victory for the United States over Russia in the
post-Cold War international chess game.”
The author, Mark MacKinnon, explained
that Eduard Shevardnadze’s downfall lied,
“in the oil under the Caspian Sea, one of
the world's few great remaining, relatively unexploited, sources of
oil,” as “Georgia and neighboring Azerbaijan, which borders the Caspian,
quickly came to be seen not just as newly independent countries, but as
part of an ‘energy corridor’.”
Plans were drawn up for a massive “pipeline that
would run through Georgia to Turkey and the Mediterranean.”
It is worth quoting MacKinnon at length:
When these plans were made, Mr. Shevardnadze
was seen as an asset by both Western investors and the U.S. government.
His reputation as the man who helped end the Cold War gave investors a
sense of confidence in the country, and his stated intention to move
Georgia out of Russia's orbit and into Western institutions such as the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union played well at
the U.S. State Department.
The United States quickly moved to embrace Georgia, opening a military
base in the country [in 2001] to give Georgian soldiers "anti-terrorist"
training. They were the first U.S. troops to set up in a former Soviet
republic.
But somewhere along the line, Mr. Shevardnadze reversed course and
decided to once more embrace Russia. This summer, Georgia signed a
secret 25-year deal to make the Russian energy giant Gazprom its sole
supplier of gas. Then it effectively sold the electricity grid to
another Russian firm, cutting out AES, the company that the U.S.
administration had backed to win the deal. Mr. Shevardnadze attacked AES
as "liars and cheats."
Both deals dramatically increased Russian
influence in Tbilisi.
Following the elections in Georgia, the
US-backed and educated Mikhail Saakashvili ascended to the Presidency and
“won the day.” [4]
This is again an example of the intimate
relationship between oil geopolitics and US foreign policy. The color
revolution was vital in pressing US and NATO interests forward in the
region; gaining control over Central Asia’s gas reserves and keeping Russia
from expanding its influence.
This follows directly in line with the US-NATO
imperial strategy for the new world order, following the collapse of the
USSR. [This strategy is outlined in detail in Part 1 above].
Ukraine
In 2004, Ukraine went through its “Orange Revolution,” in which opposition
and pro-Western leader Viktor Yushchenko became President, defeating
Viktor Yanukovych.
As the Guardian revealed in 2004, that
following the disputed elections (as happens in every “color revolution”),
“the democracy guerrillas of the Ukrainian
Pora youth movement have already notched up a famous victory - whatever
the outcome of the dangerous stand-off in Kiev,” however, “the campaign
is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived
exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries
in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and
topple unsavory regimes.”
The author, Ian Traynor, explained that,
“Funded and organized by the US government,
deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American
parties and US non-government organizations, the campaign was first used
in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot
box.”
Further, “The Democratic party's National
Democratic Institute, the Republican party's International Republican
Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies
involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO”
and the same billionaire financier involved in Georgia’s Rose
Revolution.
In implementing the regime-change strategy,
“The usually fractious oppositions have to
be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of
unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective
grounds, even if he or she is anti-American.”
Traynor continues:
Freedom House and the Democratic party's NDI
helped fund and organize the "largest civil regional election monitoring
effort" in Ukraine, involving more than 1,000 trained observers. They
also organized exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Mr
Yushchenko an 11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has
followed.
The exit polls are seen as critical because they seize the initiative in
the propaganda battle with the regime, invariably appearing first,
receiving wide media coverage and putting the onus on the authorities to
respond.
The final stage in the US template concerns how to react when the
incumbent tries to steal a lost election.
[...] In Belgrade, Tbilisi, and now Kiev, where the authorities
initially tried to cling to power, the advice was to stay cool but
determined and to organize mass displays of civil disobedience, which
must remain peaceful but risk provoking the regime into violent
suppression.[5]
As an article in the Guardian by
Jonathan Steele explained, the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko,
who disputed the election results,
“served as prime minister under the outgoing
president, Leonid Kuchma, and some of his backers are also linked to the
brutal industrial clans who manipulated Ukraine's post-Soviet
privatization.”
He further explained that election rigging is
mainly irrelevant, as,
“The decision to protest appears to depend
mainly on realpolitik and whether the challengers or the incumbent are
considered more ‘pro-western’ or ‘pro-market’.”
In other words, those who support a neoliberal
economic agenda will have the support of the US-NATO, as neoliberalism is
their established international economic order and advances their interests
in the region.
Moreover,
“In Ukraine, Yushchenko got the western nod,
and floods of money poured in to groups which support him, ranging from
the youth organization, Pora, to various opposition websites. More
provocatively, the US and other western embassies paid for exit polls.”
This is emblematic of the strategic importance
of the Ukraine to the United States,
“which refuses to abandon its cold war
policy of encircling Russia and seeking to pull every former Soviet
republic to its side.” [6]
One Guardian commentator pointed out the
hypocrisy of western media coverage:
“Two million anti-war demonstrators can
stream though the streets of London and be politically ignored, but a
few tens of thousands in central Kiev are proclaimed to be ‘the people’,
while the Ukrainian police, courts and governmental institutions are
discounted as instruments of oppression.”
It was also explained that,
“Enormous rallies have been held in Kiev in
support of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, but they are not shown
on our TV screens: if their existence is admitted, Yanukovich supporters
are denigrated as having been ‘bussed in’. The demonstrations in favor
of Viktor Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated
sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of
orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are
spontaneous.” [7]
In 2004, the Associated Press reported
that,
“The Bush administration has spent more than
$65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in
Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet
U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite an exit poll indicating he won
last month's disputed runoff election.”
The money, they state,
“was funneled through organizations such as
the Eurasia Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and
Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or
with independent news outlets.”
However, even government officials,
“acknowledge that some of the money helped
train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government
candidate.”
The report stated that some major international
foundations funded the exit polls, which according to the incumbent leader
were “skewed.”
These foundations included,
“The National Endowment for Democracy, which
receives its money directly from Congress; the Eurasia Foundation, which
receives money from the State Department, and the Renaissance
Foundation,” which receives money from the same billionaire financier as
well as the US State Department.
Since the State Department is involved,
that implies that this funding is quite directly enmeshed in US foreign
policy strategy.
“Other countries involved included Great
Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and
Denmark.”
Also involved in funding certain groups and
activities in the Ukraine was the International Republican Institute and the
National Democratic Institute, which was chaired by former Secretary of
States Madeline Albright at the time.[8]
Mark Almond wrote for the Guardian in 2004 of the advent of
“People Power,” describing it in relation to the situation that was then
breaking in the Ukraine, and stated that,
“The upheaval in Ukraine is presented as a
battle between the people and Soviet-era power structures. The role of
western cold war-era agencies is taboo. Poke your nose into the funding
of the lavish carnival in Kiev, and the shrieks of rage show that you
have touched a neuralgic point of the New World Order.”
Almond elaborated:
"Throughout the 1980s, in the build-up to
1989's velvet revolutions, a small army of volunteers - and, let's be
frank, spies - co-operated to promote what became People Power. A
network of interlocking foundations and charities mushroomed to organize
the logistics of transferring millions of dollars to dissidents. The
money came overwhelmingly from NATO states and covert allies such as
"neutral" Sweden.
[ ...] The hangover from People Power is shock therapy. Each successive
crowd is sold a multimedia vision of Euro-Atlantic prosperity by
western-funded "independent" media to get them on the streets. No one
dwells on the mass unemployment, rampant insider dealing, growth of
organized crime, prostitution and soaring death rates in successful
People Power states.
As Almond delicately put it,
“People Power is, it turns out, more about
closing things than creating an open society. It shuts factories but,
worse still, minds. Its advocates demand a free market in everything -
except opinion. The current ideology of New World Order ideologues, many
of whom are renegade communists, is Market-Leninism - that combination
of a dogmatic economic model with Machiavellian methods to grasp the
levers of power.” [9]
As Mark MacKinnon reported for the
Globe and Mail, Canada, too, supported the efforts of the youth activist
group, Pora, in the Ukraine, providing funding for the “people power
democracy” movement.
As MacKinnon noted,
“The Bush administration was particularly
keen to see a pro-Western figure as president to ensure control over a
key pipeline running from Odessa on the Black Sea to Brody on the Polish
border.”
However, “The outgoing president, Leonid
Kuchma, had recently reversed the flow so the pipeline carried Russian
crude south instead of helping U.S. producers in the Caspian Sea region
ship their product to Europe.”
As MacKinnon analyzes, the initial funding from
western nations came from Canada, although this was eventually far surpassed
in amount by the United States.
Andrew Robinson, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine at the time, in 2004,
“began to organize secret monthly meetings
of Western ambassadors, presiding over what he called "donor
co-ordination" sessions among 28 countries interested in seeing Mr.
Yushchenko succeed. Eventually, he acted as the group's spokesman and
became a prominent critic of the Kuchma government's heavy-handed media
control.”
Canada further,
“invested in a controversial exit poll,
carried out on election day by Ukraine's Razumkov Centre and other
groups, that contradicted the official results showing Mr. Yanukovich
had won.”
Once the new, pro-Western government was in, it
“announced its intention to reverse the flow of the Odessa-Brody
pipeline.” [10]
Again, this follows the example of Georgia, where several US and NATO
interests are met through the success of the “colour revolution”;
simultaneously preventing Russian expansion and influence from spreading in
the region as well as advancing US and NATO control and influence over the
major resources and transport corridors of the region.
Daniel Wolf wrote for the Guardian that,
“For most of the people gathered in Kiev's
Independence Square, the demonstration felt spontaneous. They had every
reason to want to stop the government candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, from
coming to power, and they took the chance that was offered to them. But
walking through the encampment last December, it was hard to ignore the
evidence of meticulous preparation - the soup kitchens and tents for the
demonstrators, the slickness of the concert, the professionalism of the
TV coverage, the proliferation of the sickly orange logo wherever you
looked.”
He elaborated, writing,
“the events in the square were the result of
careful, secret planning by Yushchenko's inner circle over a period of
years. The true story of the orange revolution is far more interesting
than the fable that has been widely accepted.”
Roman Bessmertny, Yushchenko's campaign
manager, two years prior to the 2004 elections,
“put as many as 150,000 people through
training courses, seminars, practical tuition conducted by legal and
media specialists. Some attending these courses were members of election
committees at local, regional and national level; others were election
monitors, who were not only taught what to watch out for but given
camcorders to record it on video. More than 10,000 cameras were
distributed, with the aim of recording events at every third polling
station.”
Ultimately, it was an intricately well-planned
public relations media-savvy campaign, orchestrated through heavy financing.
Hardly the sporadic “people power” notion
applied to the “peaceful coup” in the western media.[11]
The “Tulip Revolution”
in Kyrgyzstan
In 2005, Kyrgyzstan underwent its “Tulip Revolution” in which the incumbent
was replaced by the pro-Western candidate through another “popular
revolution.”
As the New York Times reported in March
of 2005, shortly before the March elections,
“an opposition newspaper ran photographs of
a palatial home under construction for the country's deeply unpopular
president, Askar Akayev, helping set off widespread outrage and a
popular revolt.”
However, this,
“newspaper was the recipient of United
States government grants and was printed on an American
government-financed printing press operated by Freedom House, an
American organization that describes itself as ’a clear voice for
democracy and freedom around the world’.”
Moreover, other countries that have, “helped
underwrite programs to develop democracy and civil society” in
Kyrgyzstan were Britain, the Netherlands and Norway.
These countries collectively,
“played a crucial role in preparing the
ground for the popular uprising that swept opposition politicians to
power.”
Money mostly flowed from the United States, in
particular, through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED),
as well as through,
“the Freedom House printing press or
Kyrgyz-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a
pro-democracy broadcaster.”
The National Democratic Institute also
played a major financing role, for which one of the chief beneficiaries of
their financial aid said,
“It would have been absolutely impossible
for this to have happened without that help.”
The Times further reported that:
"American money helps finance civil society
centers around the country where activists and citizens can meet,
receive training, read independent newspapers and even watch CNN or surf
the Internet in some. The N.D.I. [National Democratic Institute] alone
operates 20 centers that provide news summaries in Russian, Kyrgyz and
Uzbek.
The United States sponsors the American University in Kyrgyzstan, whose
stated mission is, in part, to promote the development of civil society,
and pays for exchange programs that send students and non-governmental
organization leaders to the United States. Kyrgyzstan's new prime
minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was one.
All of that money and manpower gave the coalescing Kyrgyz opposition
financing and moral support in recent years, as well as the
infrastructure that allowed it to communicate its ideas to the Kyrgyz
people."
As for those,
“who did not read Russian or have access to
the newspaper listened to summaries of its articles on Kyrgyz-language
Radio Azattyk, the local United States-government financed franchise of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.”
Other “independent” media was paid for courtesy
of the US State Department.[12]
As the Wall Street Journal revealed prior to the elections,
opposition groups, NGOs and “independent” media in Kyrgyzstan were getting
financial assistance from Freedom House in the US, as well as the US
Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Journal reported that,
“To avoid provoking Russia and violating
diplomatic norms, the U.S. can't directly back opposition political
parties. But it underwrites a web of influential NGOs whose support of
press freedom, the rule of law and clean elections almost inevitably
pits them against the entrenched interests of the old autocratic
regimes.”
As the Journal further reported, Kyrgyzstan,
“occupies a strategic location. The U.S. and
Russia both have military bases here. The country's five million
citizens, mostly Muslim, are sandwiched in a tumultuous neighborhood
among oil-rich Kazakhstan, whose regime tolerates little political
dissent; dictatorial Uzbekistan, which has clamped down on foreign aid
groups and destitute Tajikistan.”
In the country, a main opposition NGO, the
Coalition for Democracy and Civil Rights, gets its funding,
“from the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs, a Washington-based nonprofit funded by the U.S.
government, and from USAID.”
Other agencies reported to be involved, either
through funding or ideological-technical promotion (see: propaganda), are
the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Albert Einstein
Institute, Freedom House, and the US State Department.[13]
President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan had referred to a “third force”
gaining power in his country.
The term was borrowed from one of the most
prominent US think tanks, as “third force” is:
"...which details how western-backed
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can promote regime and policy
change all over the world. The formulaic repetition of a third "people
power" revolution in the former Soviet Union in just over one year -
after the similar events in Georgia in November 2003 and in Ukraine last
Christmas - means that the post-Soviet space now resembles Central
America in the 1970s and 1980s, when a series of US-backed coups
consolidated that country's control over the western hemisphere."
As the Guardian reported:
"Many of the same US government operatives
in Latin America have plied their trade in eastern Europe under George
Bush, most notably Michael Kozak, former US ambassador to Belarus, who
boasted in these pages in 2001 that he was doing in Belarus exactly what
he had been doing in Nicaragua: "supporting democracy".
Further:
"The case of Freedom House is particularly
arresting. Chaired by the former CIA director James Woolsey, Freedom
House was a major sponsor of the orange revolution in Ukraine. It set up
a printing press in Bishkek in November 2003, which prints 60 opposition
journals.
Although it is described as an "independent"
press, the body that officially owns it is chaired by the bellicose
Republican senator John McCain, while the former national security
adviser Anthony Lake sits on the board. The US also supports opposition
radio and TV."[14]
So again, the same formula was followed in the
Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union. This US
foreign-policy strategy of promoting “soft revolution” is managed through a
network of American and international NGOs and think tanks.
It advances NATO and, in particular, US
interests in the region.
Conclusion
The soft revolutions or “colour revolutions” are a key stratagem in the New
World Order; advancing, through deceptions and manipulation, the key
strategy of containing Russia and controlling key resources.
This strategy is critical to understanding the
imperialistic nature of the New World Order, especially when it comes to
identifying when this strategy is repeated; specifically in relation to the
Iranian elections of 2009.
Part 1 of this essay outlined the US-NATO imperial strategy for entering the
New World Order, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The
primary aim was focused on encircling Russia and China and preventing the
rise of a new superpower. The US was to act as the imperial hegemon, serving
international financial interests in imposing the New World Order.
Part 2 outlined the US imperial strategy of
using “colour revolutions” to advance its interests in Central Asia and
Eastern Europe, following along the overall policy outlined in Part 1, of
containing Russia and China from expanding influence and gaining access to
key natural resources.
The third and final part to this essay analyzes the nature of the imperial
strategy to construct a New World Order, focusing on the increasing
conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Latin America, Eastern Europe and
Africa; and the potential these conflicts have for starting a new world war
with China and Russia. In particular, its focus is within the past few
years, and emphasizes the increasing nature of conflict and war in the New
World Order.
Part 3 looks at the potential for “A New World
War for a New World Order.”
Endnotes
[1] Michael Dobbs, U.S. Advice Guided
Milosevic Opposition. The Washington Post: December 11, 2000: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18395-2000Dec3?language=printer
[2] Roger Cohen, Who Really Brought Down Milosevic? The New York Times:
November 26, 2000: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/magazine/who-really-brought-down-milosevic.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
[3] Mark MacKinnon, Georgia revolt carried mark of Soros. The Globe and
Mail: November 23, 2003: http://www.markmackinnon.ca/dispatches_georgia3.html
[4] Mark MacKinnon, Politics, pipelines converge in Georgia. The Globe
and Mail: November 24, 2003: http://www.markmackinnon.ca/dispatches_georgia2.html
[5] Ian Traynor, US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev. The Guardian:
November 26, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
[6] Jonathan Steele, Ukraine's postmodern coup d'etat. The Guardian:
November 26, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.comment
[7] John Laughland, The revolution televised. The Guardian: November 27,
2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/nov/27/pressandpublishing.comment
[8] Matt Kelley, U.S. money has helped opposition in Ukraine. Associated
Press: December 11, 2004: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041211/news_1n11usaid.html
[9] Mark Almond, The price of People Power. The Guardian: December 7,
2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec/07/ukraine.comment
[10] Mark MacKinnon, Agent orange: Our secret role in Ukraine. The Globe
and Mail: April 14, 2007: http://www.markmackinnon.ca/dispatches_ukraine4.html
[11] Daniel Wolf, A 21st century revolt. The Guardian: May 13, 2005:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/13/ukraine.features11
[12] Craig S. Smith, U.S. Helped to Prepare the Way for Kyrgyzstan's
Uprising. The New York Times: March 30, 2005: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806E4D9123FF933A05750C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
[13] Philip Shishkin, In Putin's Backyard, Democracy Stirs - With U.S.
Help. The Wall Street Journal: February 25, 2005: http://www.iri.org/newsarchive/2005/2005-02-25-News-WSJ.asp
[14] John Laughland, The mythology of people power. The Guardian: April
1, 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/01/usa.russia
Part 3
A New World War for a New World Order
December 17, 2009
Introduction
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I have analyzed US and NATO geopolitical
strategy since the fall of the Soviet Union, in expanding the American
empire and preventing the rise of new powers, containing Russia and China.
This Part examines the implications of this strategy in recent years;
following the emergence of a New Cold War, as well as analyzing the war in
Georgia, the attempts and methods of regime change in Iran, the coup in
Honduras, the expansion of the Afghan-Pakistan war theatre, and spread of
conflict in Central Africa. These processes of a New Cold War and major
regional wars and conflicts take the world closer to a New World War.
Peace
can only be possible if the tools and engines of empires are dismantled.
Eastern Europe - Forefront of the New Cold War
In 2002, the Guardian reported that,
“The US military build-up in the former
Soviet republics of central Asia is raising fears in Moscow that Washington
is exploiting the Afghan war to establish a permanent, armed foothold in the
region.” Further, “The swift construction of US military bases is also
likely to ring alarm bells in Beijing.” [1]
In 2004, it was reported that US strategy “is to position U.S. forces along
an "arc of instability" that runs through the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle
East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and southern Asia. It is in these parts of
the world - generally poor, insular and unstable - that military planners
see the major future threats to U.S. interests.” [2]
In 2005, it was reported that talks had been going on between the US and
Poland since 2002, along with various other countries, “over the possibility
of setting up a European base to intercept long-range missiles.” It was
further reported that, “such a base would not have been conceivable before
Poland joined NATO in 1999.” [3]
In November of 2007 it was reported that,
“Russia threatened to site
short-range nuclear missiles in a second location on the European Union's
border yesterday if the United States refuses to abandon plans to erect a
missile defense shield.”
A senior Russian “army general said that Iskander
missiles could be deployed in Belarus if US proposals to place 10
interceptor missiles and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic go ahead.”
Putin “also threatened to retrain Russia's nuclear arsenal on targets within
Europe.”
However,
“Washington claims that the shield is aimed not at Russia
but at states such as Iran which it accuses of seeking to develop nuclear
weapons that could one day strike the West.” [4]
This is a patently absurd claim, as in May 2009, Russian and American
scientists released a report saying,
“that it would take Iran at least
another six to eight years to produce a missile with enough range to reach
Southern Europe and that only illicit foreign assistance or a concerted and
highly visible, decade-long effort might produce the breakthroughs needed
for a nuclear-tipped missile to threaten the United States.” [5]
Even in
December of 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released by all
16 US intelligence agencies reported that,
“Iran halted its nuclear weapons
program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen.” [6]
Russia has concerns not only about missile interceptors in Poland, which it
claims are aimed at Russia, but is also concerned about “an advanced
missile-tracking radar that the Pentagon wants to place in the Czech
Republic.”[7]
Further, in 2007, the Guardian reported that,
“Russia is
preparing its own military response to the US's controversial plans to build
a new missile defence system in eastern Europe, according to Kremlin
officials, in a move likely to increase fears of a cold war-style arms
race.”
A Kremlin spokesman said of the Polish missile defenses and the Czech
radar system, that,
“We were extremely concerned and disappointed. We were
never informed in advance about these plans. It brings tremendous change to
the strategic balance in Europe, and to the world's strategic stability.” [8]
In May of 2008, it was reported that,
“President Dmitri A. Medvedev of
Russia and President Hu Jintao of China met... to conclude a deal on
nuclear cooperation and together condemn American proposals for a missile
shield in Europe. Both countries called the plan a setback to international
trust that was likely to upset the balance of power.” [9]
In July of 2008, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it,
“will be forced
to make a military response if the U.S.-Czech missile defense agreement is
ratified,” and that, “we will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but
with military-technical methods.”[10]
In August of 2008, the US and Poland
reached a deal “to place an American missile defense base on Polish
territory.” Russia responded by “saying that the move would worsen relations
with the United States.”[11]
Russia further said,
“the US had shown that
Russia was the true target of the defensive shield, as tension between the
two powers continued to rise over the conflict in Georgia.”
The Deputy Head
of Russia’s general staff “warned that Poland was making itself a target for
Russia's military.”[12]
It was further reported that,
“General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that any new
US assets in Europe could come under Russian nuclear attack with his forces
targeting ‘the allies of countries having nuclear weapons’,” and that, “Such
targets are destroyed as a first priority.”[13]
In April of 2009, Obama said, “that the U.S. missile defense system in the
Czech Republic and Poland will go forward.”[14] In May of 2009, Russia said
that it “could deploy its latest Iskander missiles close to Poland if plans
to install U.S. Patriots on Polish soil go ahead.”[15]
In July of 2009,
Russian President Medvedev said that,
“Russia will still deploy missiles
near Poland if the US pushes ahead with a missile shield in Eastern
Europe.”[16]
Iran and the China-Russia Alliance
The Bush regime used hostile
rhetoric against Iran, threatening
possible war
against the country.
However, Iran will not be in any way similar to the
military adventurism seen in Iraq. A war against Iran will bring China and
Russia to war with the west. Chinese and Russian investments with Iran, both
in terms of military cooperation as well as nuclear proliferation and energy
ties, have driven the interests of Iran together with those of China and
Russia.
In 2007, both Russia and China warned against any attack on Iran by the
west.[17] From 2004 onwards, China became Iran’s top oil export market, and
Iran is China’s third largest supplier of oil, following Angola and Saudi
Arabia. China and Iran signed a gas deal in 2008 worth 100 billion dollars.
Further,
“Beijing is helping Tehran to build dams, shipyards and many other
projects. More than 100 Chinese state companies are operating in Iran to
develop ports and airports in the major Iranian cities, mine-development
projects and oil and gas infrastructures.”
Also, “China, Iran and Russia
maintain identical foreign policy positions regarding Taiwan and
Chechnya,”[18] which only further strengthens their alliance.
In August of 2008, a senior Iranian defense official warned that any attack
against Iran would trigger a world war.[19] In February of 2009, Iran and
Russia announced that, “Iran and Russia are to boost military
cooperation.”[20]
Russia has also been selling arms and advanced weapons
systems to both Iran and Venezuela.[21]
In 2008, OPEC warned against an
attack on Iran, saying that,
“oil prices would see an ‘unlimited’ increase
in the case of a military conflict involving Iran, because the group's
members would be unable to make up the lost production.”[22]
In 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was founded as a mutual
security organization between the nations of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its main focus is on Central Asian
security matters, such as “terrorism, separatism and extremism.” Nations
with Observer status in the SCO are India, Mongolia, Pakistan and Iran.
The SCO also emphasizes economic ties between the nations, and serves as a
counter to American hegemony in Central Asia.[23]
In October of 2007, the SCO, headed by China, signed an agreement with the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), headed by Russia, in an
effort to bolster and strengthen links in defense and security between the
two major nations.[24] The CSTO was formed in 2002 between Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. In 2007, it was suggested
that Iran could join the CSTO.[25]
In April of 2009, it was reported that
the CSTO is building up its cooperation with Iran, acting as a counterweight
to NATO.[26] In February of 2009, following a summit, the CSTO had,
“produced
an agreement to set up a joint rapid-reaction force intended to respond to
the ‘broadest range of threats and challenges’.”[27]
The rapid-reaction
force “will comprise large military units from five countries - Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,” and is seen as a force to
rival NATO.[28]
In April of 2009, Russia and China “announced plans for an intensified
program of military cooperation yesterday as part of a burgeoning
‘strategic partnership’,” and that,
“As many as 25 joint maneuvers will be
staged this year in a demonstration of strengthening ties between Moscow and
Beijing.”
Further,
“Russia and China staged their first joint war games in
2005 after resolving outstanding border disputes between them. However,
Moscow views Beijing as a lucrative market for defense exports and has sold
billions of dollars of weaponry to China since the collapse of the Soviet
Union ended their Communist rivalry.”
Important to note is that,
“Both
states have a keen interest in keeping the United States and Europe out of
Central Asia as competition intensifies for access to the region’s enormous
oil and gas reserves.”[29]
In June of 2009,
“China and Russia signed a series of new agreements to
broaden their collaborations in trade, investment and mining, including the
framework on $700 million loan between Export-Import Bank of China and
Russian Bank of Foreign Trade.”
Of great importance,
“Memorandums on
bilateral gas and coal cooperation are likely to lead the two countries'
energy links to cover all the main sectors, from coal, oil, electricity, gas
to nuclear power.”
The leaders of both nations said that they,
“hoped the two
countries will also increase their joint projects in science and technology,
agriculture, telecommunications and border trade.”[30]
In April of 2009, China and Russia signed a major oil pipeline deal to
supply China with Russian oil.[31]
In July of 2009, China and Russia
underwent a week-long war game exercise of land and air forces, “designed to
counter a hypothetical threat from Islamist extremists or ethnic separatists
that both countries insist look increasingly realistic.”
In particular,
“both are driven by a growing sense of urgency stemming from what they see
as a deteriorating security picture in Afghanistan and neighboring
Pakistan.”[32]
The Georgian War - Spreading Conflict in the Caucasus
After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia’s northern province
of South Ossetia declared independence but failed to be internationally
recognized. South Ossetia as well as Georgia’s other largely autonomous
province, Abkhazia, had traditionally been allied with Russia.
There had
been long-standing tensions between South Ossetia and Georgia and a shaky
ceasefire.
On August 1, 2008, six people were killed in South Ossetia when fighting
broke out between
Georgian and South Ossetian forces. Both sides blamed each
other for opening fire first, with Russian peacekeepers blaming Georgia and
the Georgians blaming Russian peacekeepers.[33]
On August 5, Russia announced that it would “defend its citizens living in
the conflict zone” if a conflict were to erupt in Georgia, and the South
Ossetian President said Georgia was “attempting to spark a full-scale war.”
Further, South Ossetian children were being evacuated out of the conflict
zone, an act that was “condemned” by Georgia, saying that the separatists
were “using their youngsters as political propaganda.”[34]
On August 7, a ceasefire was announced between Georgia and South Ossetia,
with Russia acting as a mediator between the two.
On the night of August 7,
five hours after the declared ceasefire, Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili began a military operation against the capital city of South
Ossetia, Tskhinvali.[35] The Georgian attack targeted hospitals, the
university and left the city without food, water, electricity and gas.[36]
Georgian forces surrounded the city and their troops and tanks continued to
assault the civilian targets. On the 8th of August, Russia called for an end
to the military offensive. Reportedly, 2,000 civilians were killed by this
point in South Ossetia, so Russia sent troops into the area. Russian Prime
Minister Putin referred to Georgian actions as “genocide” and Russia also
reportedly bombed a Georgian town.
Immediately, the US called for “an end to
the Russian bombings.” The Georgian President called it an “unprovoked
brutal Russian invasion.” Much of Tskhinvali was left in ruins after the
Georgian offensive, with 34,000 South Ossetian refugees in Russia.[37]
Georgia, which had 2,000 troops deployed in Iraq, announced on August 9th
that they would be pulling 1,000 troops out of Iraq to be deployed into
South Ossetia, with the US providing the transportation for Georgian troops
to get back to Georgia.[38]
However, the Russian advance pushed the Georgian
troops back, recapturing the city and damaging much of Georgia’s military
infrastructure. The Russian troops also entered the other breakaway province
of Abkhazia and even occupied the Georgian city of Gori.
On August 12, the Russians announced an end to their military operations in
Georgia and on August 13th, the last remaining Georgian troops pulled out of
South Ossetia.
However, there is much more to this story than simply a conflict between a
small Central Asian nation and Russia. It is important to remember the role
played by American NGOs in putting the Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili into power through the Rose Revolution in 2003 [See:
Color-Coded Revolutions and the Origins of World War III].
The US then
developed closer ties with Georgia.
Even before the Rose Revolution, in
2002, US military advisers were in Georgia in an effort to open up a “new
front” in the war on terror, with Americans there to “train the Georgian
army in how to counter militant activity.”[39] Also in 2002, hundreds of US
Green Berets and 200 Special Forces arrived in Georgia to train Georgian
forces “for anti-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations.”[40]
Russia
warned against US involvement in Georgia, saying that it could “complicate”
the situation.[41]
US and Georgian troops even conducted war games and military exercises
together. In July of 2008, it was reported that 1,000 US troops in Georgia
began a military training exercise with Georgian troops called “Immediate
Response 2008.” The same report stated that “Georgia and the Pentagon
[cooperated] closely.”
The training exercise came amidst growing tensions
between Russia and Georgia, while the US was simultaneously supporting
Georgia’s bid to become a NATO member.[42]
Further, 1,200 US servicemen and 800 Georgians were to train for three weeks
at a military base near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.[43] The exercise
was being run in cooperation with NATO and was preceded by a visit to
Georgia by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, where she met with the
President and stated that, “the future of Georgia is in NATO.”[44]
However, these exercises and increased military cooperation between the US
and Georgia did not go unnoticed by Russia, which simultaneously began
military exercises on the other side of the Caucasus mountains, involving up
to 8,000 Russian servicemen.[45] Clearly, Russia itself was aware of the
potential for a military conflict in the region.
When the conflict with Russia began, there were US military instructors in
Georgia,[46] and Russia’s envoy to NATO also accused NATO of encouraging
Georgia to take the offensive against South Ossetia.[47]
The US was not the only western nation to aid Georgia, as the unofficial
NATO member, Israel, also played a part in arming Georgia.
The Georgian
tanks and artillery that captured the South Ossetian capital were aided by
Israeli military advisers. Further, for up to a year leading up to the
conflict, the Georgian President had commissioned upwards of 1,000 military
advisers from private Israeli security firms to train the Georgian armed
forces, as well as offer instruction on military intelligence and security.
Georgia also purchased military equipment from Israel.[48]
The War in Georgia was designed to escalate tensions between NATO and
Russia, using the region as a means to create a wider conflict. However,
Russia’s decision to end the combat operations quickly worked to its benefit
and had the effect of diminishing the international tensions. The issue of
NATO membership for Georgia is very important, because had it been a NATO
member, the Russian attack on Georgia would have been viewed as an attack on
all NATO members.
The war in Afghanistan was launched by NATO on the
premises of ‘an attack against one is an attack against all.’
It also was significant that there was a large pipeline deal in the works,
with Georgia sitting in a key strategic position. Georgia lies between
Russia and Turkey, between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, and above Iran
and Iraq. The significance of Georgia as a strategic outpost cannot be
underestimated. This is true, particularly when it comes to pipelines.
The Baku Tblisi Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline, the second largest pipeline in the
world, travels from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, through Tbilisi, the
capital of Georgia, to Ceyhan, a Mediterranean port city in Turkey. This
pipeline creates a route that bypasses both Iran and Russia, to bring
Caspian Basin oil resources “to the United States, Israel and Western
European markets.”
The US company Bechtel, was the main contractor for
construction, procurement and engineering, while British Petroleum (BP), is
the leading shareholder in the project.[49]
Israel gets much of its oil via
Turkey through the BTC pipeline route, which likely played a large part in
Israel’s support for Georgia in the conflict,[50] as a continual standoff
between the West and the East (Russia/China) takes place for control of the
world’s resources.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder, with
David Rockefeller, of the
Trilateral
Commission, and Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser who played a key
role in the creation of the Afghan Mujahideen, which became known as
Al-Qaeda, wrote an op-ed for Time Magazine at the outbreak of the
Russia-Georgia conflict.
Brzezinski, being a Cold War kingpin of
geopolitical strategy, naturally blamed Russia for the conflict. However, he
also revealed the true nature of the conflict.
He started by blaming Russia’s “invasion of Georgia” on its “imperial aims.”
Brzezinski blamed much of this on the “intense nationalistic mood that now
permeates Russia’s political elite.”
Brzezinski went on to explain Georgia’s
strategic significance; stating that,
“an independent Georgia is critical to
the international flow of oil,” since the BTC pipeline “provides the West
access to the energy resources of central Asia.”
Brzezinski warned Russia of
being “ostracized internationally,” in particular its business elite,
calling them “vulnerable” because “Russia’s powerful oligarchs have hundreds
of billions of dollars in Western bank accounts,” which would be subject to
a possible “freezing” by the West in the event of a “Cold War-style
standoff.”[51]
Brzezinski’s op-ed essentially amounted to geopolitical
extortion.
Regime Change in Iran
There was, for many years, a split in the administration of
George W. Bush
in regards to US policy towards Iran. On the one hand, there was the
hardliner neoconservative element, led by Dick Cheney, with Rumsfeld in the
Pentagon; who were long pushing for a military
confrontation with Iran.
On
the other hand, there was Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, who was
pushing for a more diplomatic, or “soft” approach to Iran.
In February of 2006, Condoleezza Rice introduced a new Iran strategy to the
Senate,
“emphasizing the tools of so-called soft diplomacy. She called for
ramping up funding to assist pro-democracy groups, public diplomacy
initiatives, and cultural and education fellowships, in addition to
expanding U.S.-funded radio, television, and Internet and satellite-based
broadcasting, which are increasingly popular among younger Iranians.”
She
added that,
“we are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian
people for freedom in their country.”
There were three main facets to the
program:
“Expanding independent radio and television”
“Funding
pro-democracy groups,” which “would lift bans on U.S. financing of
Iran-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, human rights
groups, and opposition candidates”
“Boosting cultural and education
fellowships and exchanges,” which “would help pay Iranian students and
scholars to enroll in U.S. universities.”[52]
This marked a significant change in U.S. foreign policy with Iran, which
would have the effect of making Iran’s domestic situation “more intense,” or
as one expert put it, “this is the thing that can undo this regime.”
Another
expert stated that if the strategy failed,
“we will have wasted the money,
but worse than that, helped discredit legitimate opposition groups as
traitors who receive money from the enemy to undermine Iran 's national
interest.”[53]
In March of 2006, the Iraq Study Group was assembled as a group of high
level diplomats and strategic elites to reexamine US policy toward Iraq, and
more broadly, to Iran as well.
It proposed a softer stance towards Iran, and
one of its members, Robert Gates, former CIA director, left the Group in
November of 2006 to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
Cheney
had fought to keep his ally in the Pentagon, but had failed in not only
that, but also in preventing Robert Gates from being his replacement.[54]
In February of 2006, the Guardian reported that the Bush administration
received,
“a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever
propaganda campaign against the Tehran government,” and quoted Secretary
Rice as saying, “we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian
people for freedom and democracy in their country.”
The “US is to increase
funds to Iranian non-governmental bodies that promote democracy, human
rights and trade unionism,” which started in 2005 for the first time since
1980, and that, “the US would seek to help build new dissident
networks.”[55]
In April of 2006, the Financial Times reported that,
“The US and UK are
working on a strategy to promote democratic change in Iran,” as “Democracy
promotion is a rubric to get the Europeans behind a more robust policy
without calling it regime change.”[56]
Christian Science Monitor reported
that the goal of the strategy was “regime change from within,” in the form
of “a pro-democracy revolution.”[57]
In July of 2007, it was reported that the White House had “shifted back in
favour of military action,” at the insistence of Cheney.[58] Josh Bolton,
former US Ambassador to the United Nations, said in May of 2007, that US
strategy consisted of three options: the first was economic sanctions, the
second was regime change, and the third was military action.
Bolton
elaborated that,
“we've got to go with regime change by bolstering
opposition groups and the like, because that's the circumstance most likely
for an Iranian government to decide that it's safer not to pursue nuclear
weapons than to continue to do so. And if all else fails, if the choice is
between a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, then I think we need to
look at the use of force.”
Ultimately, the aim would be “to foment a popular
revolution.”[59]
In September of 2007, it was reported that the Bush administration was
pushing the US on the warpath with Iran, as “Pentagon planners have
developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran.” It was even
reported that Secretary Rice was “prepared to settle her differences with
Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.”
It was reported
that Rice and Cheney were working together to present a more unified front,
finding a middle ground between Rice’s soft diplomacy, and Cheney’s
preference to use “bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons” against
Iran.[60]
That same year, in 2007, the United States launched covert operations
against Iran. ABC broke the story, reporting that,
“The CIA has received
secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to
destabilize the Iranian government.”
The President signed an order,
“that
puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign
of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and
international financial transactions.”
The approval of these covert
operations marked a temporary move away from pursuing overt military
action.[61]
As the Telegraph reported in May of 2007,
“Bush has signed an official
document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign
intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the
mullahs.”
As part of the plan,
“the CIA [has] the right to collect
intelligence on home soil, an area that is usually the preserve of the FBI,
from the many Iranian exiles and émigrés within the US,” as “Iranians in
America have links with their families at home, and they are a good two-way
source of information.”
Further,
“The CIA will also be allowed to supply
communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to
work together and bypass internet censorship by the clerical regime.”[62]
“Soft” power became the favored policy for promoting regime change in Iran.
David Denehy, a senior adviser to the State Department’s Bureau of Near
Eastern Affairs, was “charged with overseeing the distribution of millions
of dollars to advance the cause of a more democratic Iran.”
He was
responsible for disbursing the $75 million that Ms. Rice asked the Senate
for in February of 2006.
The appropriations included,
“$36.1 million into
existing television and radio programs beaming into Iran”
“$10 million
would pay for public diplomacy and exchange programs, including helping
Iranians who hope to study in America”
“$20 million would support the
efforts of civil-society groups - media, legal and human rights
nongovernmental organizations - both outside and inside Iran.”
The
administration was requesting an additional $75 million for 2008.[63]
In 2008, award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker
that in late 2007, Congress approved.
“a request from President Bush to fund
a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current
and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.”
While the
Cheney hard-liners in the Bush administration were long pushing for a direct
military confrontation with Iran, the military had to be reigned in from
being controlled by the neo-conservatives.
Robert Gates, a former CIA
director, had replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, and while still
saber rattling Iran, had to take a more strategic position, as many military
leaders in the Pentagon felt “that bombing Iran is not a viable response to
the nuclear-proliferation issue.”[64]
The covert operations that were approved ran at a cost of approximately $400
million dollars, and,
“are designed to destabilize the country’s religious
leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi
Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include
gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.”
The
operations were to be expanded under both the CIA and JSOC (the Joint
Special Operations Command).
The focus was,
“on undermining Iran’s nuclear
ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” of
which a major facet was “working with opposition groups and passing money.”
Hersh elaborated:
Many of the activities may be being carried out by dissidents in Iran, and
not by Americans in the field. One problem with “passing money” (to use the
term of the person familiar with the Finding) in a covert setting is that it
is hard to control where the money goes and whom it benefits.
Nonetheless,
the former senior intelligence official said,
“We’ve got exposure, because
of the transfer of our weapons and our communications gear. The Iranians
will be able to make the argument that the opposition was inspired by the
Americans. How many times have we tried this without asking the right
questions? Is the risk worth it?”
One possible consequence of these
operations would be a violent Iranian crackdown on one of the dissident
groups, which could give the Bush Administration a reason to intervene.[65]
Included in the strategy was to use ethnic tensions to undermine the
government; however, this strategy is flawed. Unlike Pakistan, Lebanon, and
Iraq, Iran is a much older country,
“like France and Germany - and its
citizens are just as nationalistic. The U.S. is overestimating ethnic
tension in Iran.”[66]
This turned out to be an important point in regards to
the elections in the summer of 2009.
Flashback to 1953
To understand the nature of American and British “democracy promotion” in
Iran, it is important to examine their historical practices regarding
“democracy” in Iran.
Specifically, the events of 1953 present a very
important picture, in which the United States orchestrated its first foreign
coup, with guidance and direction from the British, who had extensive oil
interests in Iran. The first democratically elected government of Mohommad
Mossadeq in 1951 announced the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company (later to be re-named British Petroleum), which had an exclusive
monopoly on Iranian oil.
This naturally angered the British, who, in 1952,
convinced the CIA to help in a plot to overthrow Iran’s government.
The idea to topple the Iranian government was born in Britain, but it didn’t
take much to convince the CIA to launch a joint operation with the SIS.
Government documents were made public which revealed that CIA,
“officers
orchestrating the Iran coup worked directly with royalist Iranian military
officers, handpicked the prime minister's replacement, sent a stream of
envoys to bolster the shah's courage, directed a campaign of bombings by
Iranians posing as members of the Communist Party, and planted articles and
editorial cartoons in newspapers.”
The strategy was aimed at supporting an
Iranian General and the Shah through CIA assets and financing, which would
overthrow Mossadeq,
“particularly if this combination should be able to get
the largest mobs in the streets.”[67]
The Shah was to play a pivotal role, as he was,
“to stand fast as the C.I.A.
stirred up popular unrest and then, as the country lurched toward chaos, to
issue royal decrees dismissing Dr. Mossadegh and appointing General Zahedi
prime minister.”
CIA operatives stoked pressure by pretending to be Iranian
Communists, threatening Muslim leaders with “savage punishment if they
opposed Mossadegh,” in an effort to stir anti-Communist and anti-Mossadeq
sentiments in the religious community.
The CIA even bombed the house of a
prominent Muslim. Further, the CIA was advancing a major propaganda
campaign, as a major newspaper owner was paid $45,000 to support the
efforts.
The CIA, once the coup was underway, used American media as
propaganda, in an attempt to legitimize the coup plotters, as the CIA sent
The Associated Press a news release saying that,
“unofficial reports are
current to the effect that leaders of the plot are armed with two decrees of
the shah, one dismissing Mossadegh and the other appointing General Zahedi
to replace him.”
The CIA also disseminated this propaganda through Iranian
media.
Following the beginning of the coup, which began on August 15, Mossadeq
suspended the Parliament, which ultimately played “into the C.I.A.'s hands.”
After having several plotters arrested, he let his guard down.
Then the
American Embassy planned a counterattack for August 19, specifically using
religious forces. At this time, the Communist Party blamed “Anglo-American
intrigue” for the coup. However, just as the CIA thought it was a failure,
Iranian papers began publishing en masse the Shah’s decrees, and suddenly
large pro-Shah crowds were building in the streets.
An Iranian journalist
who was an important CIA agent,
“led a crowd toward Parliament, inciting
people to set fire to the offices of a newspaper owned by Dr. Mossadegh's
foreign minister. Another Iranian C.I.A. agent led a crowd to sack the
offices of pro-Tudeh papers.”
Then coup supporters in the military began to enter the streets, and soon,
“the crowds began to receive direct leadership from a few officers involved
in the plot and some who had switched sides. Within an hour the central
telegraph office fell, and telegrams were sent to the provinces urging a
pro-shah uprising. After a brief shootout, police headquarters and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs fell as well.”
Interestingly, according to the
declassified documents, the CIA,
“hoped to plant articles in American
newspapers saying Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi's return resulted from a
homegrown revolt against a Communist-leaning government,” but that
ultimately, “its operatives had only limited success in manipulating
American reporters.”
The CIA planted stories in US media, such as one
instance where the State Department planted a CIA study in Newsweek.
One of the key lessons the CIA learned in this operation, was that it
“exposed the agency's shortcomings in manipulating the American press.” The
CIA even manipulated a reporter with the New York Times to disseminate
propaganda. While Soviet media was proclaiming the US responsible for the
coup, American mentions of this in the media dismissed these accusations
outright, and never “examined such charges seriously.”[68]
By the end of
Operation Ajax, as the CIA coup was codenamed, “some 300
people had died in firefights in the streets of Tehran,” largely due to the
CIA “provoking street violence.”
The coup resulted in,
“more than two decades
of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms.”[69]
The West Sponsors Terrorists in Iran
In 2005, Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, reported that, “the Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam
Hussein's dreaded intelligence services,” was now working for the CIA in
terror bombings inside Iran.[70]
In February of 2007, the Telegraph reported
that,
“America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran
in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.”
The CIA operations,
“involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist
methods,” and the article noted that, “there has been a wave of unrest in
ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination
campaigns against soldiers and government officials,” and interestingly, the
CIA operations are focused on “helping opposition militias among the
numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.”
A
former State Department counter-terrorism agent was quoted as saying,
“The
latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train
Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime.”[71]
ABC News reported in April of 2007 that,
“A Pakistani tribal militant group
responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been
secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005.”
The
group, named Jundullah, operates out of the Baluchistan province in
Pakistan, on the boarder of Iran, and “has taken responsibility for the
deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and
officials.”[72]
In 2008, Pakistan’s former Army Chief said that,
“the US is supporting the
outlawed Jundullah group to destabilize Iran,” and that, “the US is
providing training facilities to Jundullah fighters - located in eastern
areas of Iran - to create unrest in the area and affect the cordial ties
between Iran and its neighbor Pakistan.”[73]
The 2009 Election Protests
The events of 1953 presented a blueprint for the 2009 Iranian election
protests, an attempted “soft revolution” in Iran, also drawing from the
“colour revolutions” in the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe [See:
Color-Coded Revolutions and the Origins of World War III].
It is the thesis
of this author that the 2009 election riots in Iran were a covert US (and
British) plot designed to orchestrate regime change in Iran. The aim was to
put in place a US-friendly leader, and thus, exert political, economic and
strategic hegemony over Iran.
Following the stratagem of US-funded “colour
revolutions” in the former Soviet bloc, but with heavy CIA influence,
drawing parallels with the 1953 coup; the plot was ultimately unsuccessful.
While the 1953 coup revealed the failure of the CIA to greatly influence and
manipulate US media, the 2009 riots revealed a great success in American
media manipulation; however, ironically, it was the focus on this triumphant
success that may have impeded the ultimate success of the plot. American
popular perception of an illegitimate election and political oppression was
enough to support regime change, but not to enact regime change.
So, in a
bitter irony for the US, the failure of the 1953 coup, became the success of
the 2009 plot; while the success of the 1953 coup, became the failure of the
2009 plot. It just so happens that the success of the 1953 coup... was
that it worked.
In November of 2008, Iranian media reported that, “the White House is making
strenuous efforts to orchestrate a "Velvet Revolution" in Iran.”
The former
Iranian ambassador to
the United Nations said that,
“that Washington is
conspiring to foment discord among Iranians in order to topple the Tehran
government.”[74]
Iranian media reported in April of 2009, two months prior to the
Presidential elections, that Iran's Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had,
“uncovered a plot for a ‘soft overthrow’ of the country's government,” and
“accused the Netherlands of conspiring to foment a velvet revolution in the
country by supporting the opposition through the media and different
Internet sites.”
In 2005, the Dutch parliament funded a 15 million
Euro
“media polarization campaign” inside Iran, which was “Coupled with British
assistance and secret US funding.”[75]
In the lead-up to the elections, there were increasing attacks within Iran.
Two weeks before the election, on May 28, 2009, in southeastern Iran, a
Shi’a mosque bombing resulted in the deaths of 20 people. An Iranian
official accused the United States of involvement in arming the terrorists,
who committed the act in a Sunni area of Iran, a religious minority within
the country.
Jundullah, the terrorist organization armed and funded by the
US through the CIA, claimed responsibility for the bombing.[76] The
following day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election campaign
office was attacked by gunmen in the same city as the bombing, resulting in
several injuries.[77] These attacks, aimed at stirring up religious
tensions, are reminiscent of the attacks carried out by the CIA in Iran in
the 1953 coup.
The day before the election, on June 11, 2009, it was reported that the
National Endowment for Democracy, the main institution behind the “colour
revolutions” in Eastern Europe (covered in above Part 2 of this series), had spent
a lot of money that made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups inside
Iran, as Mousavi was the Western favored candidate in the Iranian
elections.
It was even reported that there was talk of a “green revolution”
in Iran, as the Mousavi campaign was full of green scarves and banners at
the rallies.[78]
On June 10, 2009, two days before the election, a New York Times blog
reported that there was concern among many Ahmadinejad supporters in Iran
that they fear,
“that what they are witnessing is a local version of the
Orange Revolution, which swept an opposition government into power in
Ukraine.”[79]
On June 12, 2009, the Iranian election took place. Immediately, the
propaganda machine went into effect and the plan for a colour revolution in
Iran was underway.
Iran’s state run news agency reported that Ahmadinejad
had won in a landslide victory of 69%.
Immediately, his main rival and the
American-favored candidate, Moussavi, claimed that he had won and that
there were voting “irregularities,” and was quoted as saying,
“I am the
absolute winner of the election by a very large margin.”[80]
Immediately, Western governments denounced the election as a fraud, and
protests began in the streets of Tehran, where young people clad in the
green of the Mousavi campaign declared “Death to the Dictator” referring to
Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi encouraged the protests to continue, and in the second
day of protests, young people,
“broke the windows of city buses on several
streets in central Tehran. They burned banks, rubbish bins and piles of tyres used as flaming barricades. Riot police hit some of the protesters
with batons while dozens of others holding shields and motorcycles stood
guard nearby.”
Western governments then openly declared their solidarity
with the protests and denounced the Iranian government for repressing
them.[81]
Despite all the claims of vote fraud and irregularities, those taking this
position offered no actual evidence to support it.
As Politico reported on
June 15, the people proclaiming fraud,
“ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad’s
62.6 percent of the vote in this year’s election is essentially the same as
the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential
election.”
These people also conveniently ignore many popular perceptions
within Iran, such as the fact that most Iranians saw Ahmadinejad as having
won the televised debates and that he can also be viewed as a populist
campaigner.
Ahmadinejad has the support of a large amount of Iranians,
“including the religiously pious, lower-income groups, civil servants and
pensioners.”[82]
Some “evidence” for fraud was highly circumstantial, in that it claimed that
because Mousavi comes from an Azeri background,
“he was guaranteed to win
Iran’s Azeri-majority provinces,” and so, when Ahmadinejad won in these
provinces, “fraud is the only possible explanation.”
However, Ahmadinejad
also speaks Azeri quite fluently, had formerly served as an official in two
Azeri areas, and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khameini, is also
Azeri.[83]
This also ignores the class based voting of Iranians. While the West tends
to portray the Middle East and Africa through an Orientalist lens, viewing
them as “the Other,” and often portraying the people of these regions as
backwards or barbaric, reality is a far cry from Western perception.
People
in the
Middle East, including in Iran, vote with concerns about the economy
and social conditions in mind just as much as voters in the west do. Voting
in the Middle East is not simply based upon religious or ethnic differences,
there is more to consider, and any analysis that forgets this is flawed.
Even the Financial Times was quoted as saying,
“Change for the poor means
food and jobs, not a relaxed dress code or mixed recreation,” and that,
“Politics in Iran is a lot more about class war than religion.”[84]
As James Petras wrote,
“The only group, which consistently favored Mousavi,
was the university students and graduates, business owners and the upper
middle class.”[85]
These also happened to be the highly Westernized
Iranians.
The Iranians protesting in the “green revolution” were holding
signs written in English, and were giving interviews to western media all in
English. Many were western educated and raised. The Iranian diaspora in the
west was also largely supportive of the “green revolution,” as they are the
sons and daughters of those who had emigrated out of Iran following the 1979
Iranian Revolution.
They are the children of the exiled Iranian capitalist
class, and do not represent a fair assessment of the internal Iranian
population. After all, the poor and the masses do not have the means to
emigrate to the west. Naturally, many westernized youth in Iran have
legitimate concerns and social issues with the present way of governance
within Iran; however, the majority of Iranians are more concerned with their
daily meals than Islamic dress codes.
As Petras further pointed out,
“The ‘youth vote’, which the Western media
praised as ‘pro-reformist’, was a clear minority of less than 30% but came
from a highly privileged, vocal and largely English speaking group with a
monopoly on the Western media.”[86]
Even the Washington Post reported on
June 15, about a major Western poll conducted in Iran three weeks prior to
the election, in which it “showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1
margin - greater than his actual apparent margin of victory,” and the
“scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.”
The Washington Post article further pointed out that,
“Much commentary has
portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this
election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access
to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting
bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.”
Further, the only demographic where Mousavi was “leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university
students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians.”
The article ended
by saying that,
“The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.”[87]
The Internet played a very large role in the international perception of the
Iranian elections, as social networking sites like
Twitter and
Facebook were
used to advance the aims of the “green revolution,” often giving it the name
the “Twitter Revolution.”
Remember that in 2007,
“a CIA plan that reportedly
includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and
manipulation,” was put into effect, which were “intended to destabilize, and
eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
As part of this,
“The CIA will also be allowed to supply communications equipment which would
enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass internet
censorship by the clerical regime.”[88]
In the midst of the protests, the Iranian government cracked down on
dissent, banning foreign reporters and blocking websites.
As the Washington
Times reported,
“Well-developed Twitter lists showed a constant stream of
situation updates and links to photos and videos, all of which painted a
portrait of the developing turmoil. Digital photos and videos proliferated
and were picked up and reported in countless external sources safe from the
regime's Net crackdown.”[89]
Naturally, all of this information came from
the upper class Western students, who had access to this technology, which
they were using in English.
On June 15,
“a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed
the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled
maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while
Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world
about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.”
Further, the New York Times
reported that,
“Mr. Cohen, a Stanford University graduate who is the
youngest member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, has been
working with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other services to harness their
reach for diplomatic initiatives.”[90]
It turned out only a small number of people in Iran actually used Twitter
for organizational purposes; however,
“Twitter did prove to be a crucial
tool in the cat-and-mouse game between the opposition and the government
over enlisting world opinion.”
Twitter also took part in spreading
disinformation during the protests, as the New York Times pointed out that,
“some of the biggest errors on Twitter that were quickly repeated and
amplified by bloggers: that three million protested in Tehran last weekend
(more like a few hundred thousand); that the opposition candidate Mir
Hussein Moussavi was under house arrest (he was being watched); that the
president of the election monitoring committee declared the election invalid
last Saturday (not so).”[91]
On the 28th of June, the Iranian Intelligence Minister blamed western
powers, specifically the United States and Britain, for the post-election
protests and violence. Iran even arrested British embassy staff in
Tehran.[92]
On July 3, the head of Iran's Guardians Council said that,
“British embassy staff would be put on trial for inciting violent protests.”
Iran had arrested nine “British embassy employees it accused of playing a
role in organizing pro-democracy demonstrations,” but had released seven of
them by July.
However, one Embassy staff member had been accused of “a
significant role” in the election riots.[93]
Amidst all the British denials of any involvement, the Telegraph revealed in
late July that two exiles,
“Azadeh Assadi and Vahid Saderigh have been
providing crucial support to opposition leaders in Tehran from their homes
in London,” who “take their cue from Iran's Green Movement which has been
the rallying point for an unprecedented challenge to the leadership of the
Islamic Republic.”
They further organized the protests at the Iranian
Embassy in London, which lasted for 31 days, longer than anywhere else.[94]
Hossein Rassam, head of the security and political division of the British
Embassy in Tehran, was arrested under suspicions that he played a key role
in the protests “in providing guidance to diplomats and reporters of the
British media.”
Further, an Iranian-American scholar was arrested.
In 2007,
Iran arrested,
“Haleh Esfandiari, head of the Wilson Center's Middle East
program, and Kian Tajbakhsh, with links to the Soros institute, on
suspicions of endangering the country's national security.”
They were
released after three months detention.[95]
Of great interest were the statements made my former high-level American
strategic kingpins of the foreign policy establishment in the wake of the
riots: among them,
-
Henry Kissinger
-
Zbigniew Brzezinski
-
Brent
Scowcroft
Former US National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, in an
interview with Al-Jazeera shortly after the start of the protests, when
asked if the US had intelligence agents on the ground in Iran, replied,
without hesitation,
“Of course we do.”
The interviewer asked if they would
help the protesters, to which Scowcroft replied,
“They might be, who knows.
But that’s a far cry from helping protesters against the combined might of
the Revolutionary Guard, the militias, and so on, and the police, who are so
far, completely unified.”
He explained that he feels the “movement” for
change is there in Iran, and that,
“It’s going to change Iran, I think that
is almost inevitable.”[96]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser in the Jimmy Carter
administration, co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral
Commission, and arch-hawk geopolitical strategist, was interviewed on CNN
shortly after the protests began.
When asked how the situation could be
worked out to resemble Eastern Europe, as in, successful color revolutions
putting western puppets in power, Brzezinski responded,
“Well, I think it
will not work out the way Eastern Europe worked out, and hopefully it will
not end the way Tiananmen Square ended. Eastern Europe became intensely
pro-Western, pro-American, and so forth.”
Further, he explained, “If there
is a change of regime in Iran, there is a greater chance of accommodation,
and I think that is to be fervently wished for. But that requires patience,
intelligent manipulation, moral support, but no political interference.”[97]
Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State;
was interviewed by BBC at the outbreak of the riots.
He stated that,
“Now if
it turns out that it is not possible for a government to emerge in Iran that
can deal with itself as a nation rather than as a cause, then we have a
different situation. Then we may conclude that we must work for regime
change in Iran from the outside.”[98]
Clearly, there were extensive Western interests and involvement behind the
Iranian “democracy” movement that resulted in the protests following the
election. However, the ultimate goal of the attempted “colour revolution”
failed, as it did not succeed in achieving regime change.
Brzezinski’s
strategy of “intelligent manipulation” ultimately failed, and so, as Henry
Kissinger stated,
“we may conclude that we must work for regime change in
Iran from the outside.”
Latin America Is Not to Be Left Out
- The Coup in Honduras
It is important to take a look at recent events in Latin America in an
imperial context to understand how wide and vast American and NATO imperial
strategy is.
While the world’s eyes and media were fixated on events in
Iran, another event was taking place in Latin America, which was
conveniently ignored by international media.
On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military kidnapped the President of Honduras
and flew him into exile. The official line was that the coup was prompted
when Manuel Zelaya, the President of Honduras, was attempting to schedule a
poll on holding a referendum about rewriting the constitution.
The Supreme
Court secretly issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya on June 26, “charging him
with treason and abuse of power.”[99]
The military entered his house two
days later, and put him on a military plane to Costa Rica, and the same day,
the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya and replace him with the
Speaker of Congress Roberto Micheletti.
Zelaya happened to be a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, as
well as Bolivian President Evo Morales; who represent the populist leaders
of the new move to the left in Latin America, and pose a strong opposition
force to the hegemony of US and Western interests in the region.
Hugo Chavez
alleged that the coup had the hands of the United States in it, and that the
upper class in Honduras helped and,
“have turned Honduras into a 'banana
republic', into a political, military and terror base for the North American
empire.”[100]
The New York Times reported that
the Obama administration was “surprised” by
the coup,
“But they also said that they had been working for several weeks
to try to head off a political crisis in Honduras as the confrontation
between Mr. Zelaya and the military over his efforts to lift presidential
term limits escalated.”
Further, “The United States has long had strong ties
to the Honduras military and helps train Honduran military forces.”
It was
further reported that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Zelaya on
June 2, and that the United States thought Zelaya’s plans for reforming the
Constitution was a “bad idea.”
The US Ambassador to Honduras had held
discussions with military officials where,
“There was talk of how they might
remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose
authority they could do that.”[101]
As it turned out, the General in the Honduran Army who overthrew Zelaya,
“is
a two-time graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, an institution
that has trained hundreds of coup leaders and human rights abusers in Latin
America.”
Past graduates have included,
-
Argentine Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri
-
Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt
-
Panamanian dictators Gen. Omar Torrijos, who overthrew a civilian government in a 1968 coup
-
Gen.
Manuel Noriega, a five-time SOA graduate, who ruled the country and dealt in
drugs while on the CIA payroll
-
Ecuadorian dictator Gen. Guillermo
Rodriguez
-
Bolivian dictators Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez and Gen. Guido Vildoso
Calderon
-
Peruvian strongman Gen. Juan Velasco
Alvarado [102]
As was reported the following day of the coup, over the previous ten years,
“the United States has delivered $18.41 million in weapons and defense
articles to Honduras through the foreign military sales program,” with
Foreign Military Financing totaling $7.3 million between 2003 and today, and
“International Military Education and Training funds in that same period
came to $14.82 million.”[103]
The Washington Post reported, two days following the coup, that when Clinton
was asked if it was a US priority to see Zelaya reinstated, she responded,
“We haven't laid out any demands that we're insisting on, because we're
working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives.”
Zelaya had fired
Gen. Romeo Vasquez prior to the coup, and Air Force commander, Gen. Luis
Javier Prince Suazo, along with many other military leaders resigned. Both
Vasquez and Suazo were trained at the
School of the Americas.[104]
An article in the Guardian published a few days after the coup stated that,
as countries around the world condemned the coup and called for the
reinstatement of Zelaya,
“Washington's ambivalence has begun to raise
suspicions about what the US government is really trying to accomplish in
this situation.”
One possibility for this is that “the Obama administration
may want to extract concessions from Zelaya as part of a deal for his return
to office.”
Following the coup, oppression in Honduras was rampant:
“political repression, the closing of TV and radio stations, the detention
of journalists, detention and physical abuse of diplomats and what the
Committee to Protect Journalists has called a "media blackout" have yet to
draw a serious rebuke from Washington.”
As the author astutely stated:
The battle between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reform president who is
supported by labour unions and social organizations against a mafia-like,
drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only
the supreme court and the Congress, but also the president. It is a
recurrent story in Latin America, and the US has almost always sided with
the elites.[105]
This harks back to 2002, when the United States had its hands involved in
the attempted coup in Venezuela to oust President Hugo Chavez, which
ultimately failed.
In the months leading up to the attempted coup in April
2002, US officials held a series of meetings with “Venezuelan military
officers and opposition activists.”
Further,
“a few weeks before the coup
attempt, administration officials met Pedro Carmona, the business leader who
took over the interim government after President Hugo Chavez was arrested.”
The Pentagon even,
“confirmed that the Venezuelan army's chief of staff,
General Lucas Romero Rincon, visited the Pentagon in December and met the
assistant secretary of defense for western hemispheric affairs.”
Further,
when “Mr Carmona and other opposition leaders came to the US they met Otto
Reich, the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs.”
Otto Reich was a veteran of the Reagan-era “dirty tricks” in Latin America,
such as the contra operations, which involved the US funding drug-running
terrorists and death squads, and Reich,
“was the head of the office of public
diplomacy in the state department, which was later found to have been
involved in covert pro-contra propaganda.”[106]
The Observer reported that the coup attempt in 2002 “was closely tied to
senior officials in the US government.”
Among the officials involved,
“Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a
conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.”
There was of course Otto Reich, who met with all the coup leaders in the
months preceding the coup.
Finally, there was John Negroponte, who was in
2002,
“ambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan's ambassador to
Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16,
tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said
Negroponte had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela
on Chavez' at the beginning of the year.”[107]
Two weeks following the coup in Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, the man who
replaced Zelaya following the coup, showed up at the house of President
Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, who was to mediate between the “interim
government” and Zelaya.
Micheletti however, was accompanied with an
interesting cast of characters.
He arrived with six advisers, among them,
“an American public relations specialist who has done work for former
President Bill Clinton and the American’s interpreter, and an official close
to the talks said the team rarely made a move without consulting him.”
International pressure for US sanctions on Honduras was building, however:
Mr. Micheletti has embarked on a public relations offensive, with his
supporters hiring high-profile lawyers with strong Washington connections to
lobby against such sanctions. One powerful Latin American business council
hired Lanny J. Davis, who has served as President Clinton’s personal lawyer
and who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton for president.
[...] Mr. Micheletti brought the adviser from another firm with Clinton
ties to the talks in Costa Rica. The adviser, Bennett Ratcliff of San Diego,
refused to give details about his role at the talks.
“Every proposal that Micheletti’s group presented was written or approved by
the American,” said another official close to the talks, referring to Mr.
Ratcliff.[108]
Clearly, whatever the end result, which has yet to be determined,
the hand
of the United States can be seen in the Honduran coup.
The bias and
ultimately the failure of the international media became quite evident as a
result of the coup. While the global media, particularly the western
corporate media, were devoting non-stop coverage to the Iranian elections,
proclaiming fraud, while offering no evidence.
A military coup ousting a
democratically elected president and installing an oppressive dictatorship
which immediately began its heavy handed repression received scant
attention. The western media attacked an actual democratic process in
action, while ignoring a military assault against democracy.
Which story
receives more coverage is determined by the interests involved:
-
in Iran, the
West wanted a new government, so the media pushed for one
-
in Honduras, the
US wanted a new government,
...so
the media turned a blind eye while they got
one through non-democratic means.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan War Theatre
Within days of getting into office, President Obama authorized a missile
strike in Pakistan, which killed several civilians.
Obama continued with
this strategy, after Bush, in July of 2008, “authorized the C.I.A. and the
Joint Special Operations Command to make ground incursions into
Pakistan.”[109] This was to set the pace for US strategy in the region,
particularly in relation to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In late March, Obama announced his plan for a new Afghanistan and Pakistan
strategy, which are to be a combined strategy. As part of the strategy,
known as the
AfPak strategy,
“More U.S. troops, civilian officials and money
will be needed,” and “Obama pledged to tighten U.S. focus on Pakistan.”
Further, Obama announced in late March that,
“he would send 4,000 U.S.
troops - beyond the additional 17,000 he authorized” in February, “to work
as trainers and advisers to the Afghan army, and hundreds more civilian
officials and diplomats to help improve governance and the country's
economy,” bringing the total number of US troops up to 60,000.[110]
In May, a major event took place in military circles, as one of the few
times in over 50 years an American wartime general was fired in the field.
In May of 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the top general in
Afghanistan saying that what was needed was “fresh thinking” and “fresh
eyes” on Afghanistan.
Gates “recommended that President Obama replace
McKiernan with a veteran Special Operations commander, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.” As the
Washington Post reported, McKiernan, the general whom
Gates fired,
“was viewed as somewhat cautious and conventionally
minded.”[111]
Could it be that McKiernan did not see the AfPak strategy as a
viable option; that it went against “caution”?
His replacement, General McChrystal, was,
“the director of the Pentagon's
Joint Staff. From 2006 to August 2008, he was the forward commander of the
U.S. military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command, responsible for
capturing or killing high-level leaders of the Sunni insurgent group
al-Qaeda in Iraq.”[112]
One expert summed up the new General as such:
“McChrystal kills people.”
One senior military official at the Pentagon
asked,
“what message are we sending when our high-value-target hunter is
sent to lead in Afghanistan?”[113]
However, there is another twist to this story.
As Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist, Seymour Hersh revealed, Cheney created a special unit called the
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which was
to carry out high-level
assassinations. This unit was kept a secret for many years, and Hersh
referred to it as an “Executive assassination ring.”
Hersh reported that
they carried out many assassinations,
“not just in Iraq and Afghanistan,
it's in a lot of other countries, in the Middle East and in South Asia and
North Africa and even central America.”
The new General of the AfPak war
theatre, Stanley McChrystal, used to run Cheney’s assassination squad.[114]
At the end of November 2009, Obama announced a surge of an additional 30,000
troops to Afghanistan,
“bringing the total American force to about
100,000.”[115]
Further, in early December, it was reported that Obama,
“authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless
tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s
decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to
Afghanistan.”[116]
Clearly, the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy will only further inflame the
region in conflict and turmoil.
Expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan is
akin to playing with matches around a stick of dynamite. Perhaps this was
the clarity of the previous general, McKiernan, in seeing this strategic
insanity, and thus, the reason for his removal.
The destabilization of this
region threatens all of the neighboring countries, including,
-
India
-
China
-
Russia
-
Turkey
-
Iran
The possibility of creating a much wider war in the
region, and even between the great powers, is ever increasing.
Africa and AFRICOM
During the Cold War, Africa was an imperial battleground between the USSR
and the US-NATO powers, with the ultimate goal being the control over
strategic resource-rich areas.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Russia’s influence in Africa largely dissipated, and with that, came the
neo-imperial struggle among the western powers for control over key
strategic points. Now, the great battle in Africa is between the NATO
powers, primarily the United States, and China, which has had exponential
growth and influence on the continent.
The 1990s saw the Rwandan genocide as a key event in Africa, which was, in
actuality, a struggle between France and the United States over the key
strategic location of Rwanda. The World Bank and IMF laid the groundwork for
conflict, creating the economic conditions that exacerbated colonial-era
ethnic tensions. Meanwhile, the United States, through its proxy state of
Uganda, funded military operations and trained the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF), which conducted military operations from Uganda into Rwanda.
The
Civil War waged from 1990-1993, with the US funding all sides of the
conflict. In 1994, the RPF shot down the plane carrying the Presidents of
Rwanda and Burundi, which sparked the genocide.
Following the genocide, the
US-trained puppet, Paul Kagame, became President of Rwanda.[117]
Following these events, the US had two protectorates in Central Africa,
Uganda and Rwanda, both of which bordered the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC). This was the ultimate prize in the area. From both Rwanda and
Uganda, military operations were funded and paramilitary forces were trained
by the United States to venture into the DRC, which erupted in coups and
Civil War. However, western, primarily American and Canadian corporations
were plundering the resource-rich Congo, while millions of Congolese
civilians died.[118]
In April of 2001, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney held a hearing on Western
involvement in the plunder of Africa, in which she stated,
“at the heart of
Africa’s suffering is the West’s, and most notably the United States’,
desire to access Africa’s diamonds, oil, natural gas, and other precious
resources... the West, and most notably the United States, has set in
motion a policy of oppression, destabilization and tempered, not by moral
principle, but by a ruthless desire to enrich itself on Africa’s fabulous
wealth.”[119]
In the
New World Order, Africa has not lost its significance as a
geopolitical prize for the great powers.
While the Middle East, save Iran,
is largely under the influence of the United States and its NATO allies,
Africa is the main battleground between the US and China.
Imperialism in
Africa goes under many names:
U.S. Strategy in Africa
In 2005, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the main policy-planning
group of the US elite, published a Task Force Report on US strategy in
Africa called, More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward
Africa.
In the report, it was stated that:
Africa is becoming more important because of its growing role in supplying
the world with oil, gas, and non-fuel minerals. Now supplying the United
States with 15 percent of oil imports, Africa’s production may double in the
next decade, and its capacity for natural gas exports will grow even more.
In the next decade, Africa could be supplying the United States with as much
energy as the Middle East.[120]
The report stated that,
“The United States is facing intense competition for
energy and other natural resources in Africa,” identifying India and
primarily China as its main competitors “in the search for these resources
and for both economic and political influence on the continent.”[121]
In
particular, “China presents a particularly important challenge to U.S.
interests.”[122]
Further,
“To compete more effectively with China, the United States must
provide more encouragement and support to well-performing African states,
develop innovative means for U.S. companies to compete, give high-level
attention to Africa, and engage China on those practices that conflict with
U.S. interests.”[123]
In analyzing the threat China poses to the US in Africa, the report
hypocritically and misleadingly states that one of its main concerns is that
China uses,
“its seat on the UN Security Council to protect some of Africa’s
most egregious regimes from international sanction, in particular Sudan and
Zimbabwe.”[124]
This conveniently ignores the United States doing the same
thing in regards to Israel, as well as its tacit, overt and covert support
for brutal regimes across the world, not simply in Africa.
The report explained that much of China’s growing influence is due to its
“soft loans,” meaning that Chinese loans to African countries do not come
attached with “conditions” as in
World Bank and
IMF loans, which make them
much more attractive to African countries. China is also heavily invested in
the oil of Sudan, specifically in Darfur, which the West does not have
access to.
In analyzing how the
War on Terror
had been brought to Africa, the report
stated:
Post-9/11, the U.S. counter-terror approach to Africa has been led by the
U.S. military:
-
CENTCOM in the Horn
-
EUCOM in West, Central, and southern
Africa
-
the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM)
More quietly, U.S.
intelligence cooperation with key states has expanded in parallel with the
enlargement of the U.S. military’s role.[125]
As the Guardian reported in June of 2005,
“A new ‘scramble for Africa’ is
taking place among the world's big powers, who are tapping into the
continent for its oil and diamonds.”
A key facet of this is that,
“corporations from the US, France, Britain and China are competing to profit
from the rulers of often chaotic and corrupt regimes.”[126]
Somalia
In May of 2006, the Washington Post reported that the US has been,
“secretly
supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against
Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu.”[127]
In December of 2006, Ethiopia, heavily backed and supported by the US,
invaded and occupied Somalia, ousting the Islamist government. The US
support for the operations was based upon the claims of Somalia being a
breeding ground for terrorists and Al-Qaeda. However, this was has now
turned into an insurgency.
Wired Magazine reported in December of 2008 that,
“For several years the U.S. military has fought a covert war in Somalia,
using gunships, drones and Special Forces to break up suspected terror
networks - and enlisting Ethiopia’s aid in propping up a pro-U.S. "transitional"
government.”[128]
However, there is naturally more to this than fighting “terrorists.”
Civil
war has raged in Somalia since 1991, creating destabilization and political
instability. The UN intervened between 1992 and 1995, and the US sent in
Special Forces in 1993.
As the Los Angeles Times revealed in 1993,
“four
major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in
exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of
the Somali countryside.”
According to the article,
“nearly two-thirds of
Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and
Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad
Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991.”
Further:
Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to maintain a
functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide
anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government's role in the
U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort.
Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia
reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad
Barre's fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed
into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed
in the capital, with Bush's special envoy using it as his temporary
headquarters.
In addition, the president of the company's subsidiary in
Somalia won high official praise for serving as the government's volunteer
"facilitator" during the months before and during the U.S.
intervention.[129]
The Ethiopian troops occupied Somalia for a couple years, and in January of
2009, the last Ethiopian troops left the capital city of Mogadishu.
In 2007,
the UN authorized an African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Somalia. In
March of 2007, Ugandan military officials landed in Somalia. Essentially,
what this has done is that the more overt Ethiopian occupation of Somalia
has been replaced with a UN-mandated African Union occupation of the
country, in which Ugandan troops make up the majority.
Since Uganda is a
proxy military state for the US in the region, the more overt US supported
Ethiopian troops have been replaced by a more covert US-supported Ugandan
contingent.
Africom
In 2007, Newsweek reported that,
“America is quietly expanding its fight
against terror on the African front. Two years ago the United States set up
the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership with nine countries in central
and western Africa.
There is no permanent presence, but the hope is to
generate support and suppress radicalism by both sharing U.S. weapons and
tactics with friendly regimes and winning friends through a vast
humanitarian program assembled by USAID, including well building and
vocational training.”
The Pentagon announced the formation of a new military
strategic command called “Africom” (Africa Command), which,
“will integrate
existing diplomatic, economic and humanitarian programs into a single
strategic vision for Africa, bring more attention to long-ignored American
intelligence-gathering and energy concerns on the continent, and elevate
African interests to the same level of importance as those of Asia and the
Middle East.”
The article gave brief mention to critics, saying that,
“Not surprisingly,
the establishment of a major American base in Africa is inspiring new
criticism from European and African critics of U.S. imperial overreach.”
Some claim it represents a “militarization of U.S. Africa policy,” which is
not a stretch of imaginations, as the article pointed out,
“the United
States has identified the Sahel, a region stretching west from Eritrea
across the broadest part of Africa, as the next critical zone in the War on
Terror and started working with repressive governments in Chad and Algeria,
among others, to further American interests there.”
As Newsweek further reported:
The problem is that, increasingly, African leaders appear not to want
Africom. They see it as the next phase of the War on Terror - a way to pursue jihadists inside Africa's weak or failed states, which many U.S. officials
have described as breeding grounds for terror. They worry that the flow of
arms will overwhelm the flow of aid, and that U.S. counterterrorism will
further destabilize a region already prone to civil wars.[130]
Africom is the new American military command designed to control Africa,
which currently sits as an important neo-colonial battleground between the
US and China. Africa still remains a major front in the imperialist
adventures of the dominant powers of the New World Order.
Its rich wealth in
resources makes it an important strategic location for the world powers to
seek hegemony over.
Conclusion
The continuation of the Cold War stances of the West versus the East remain
and are exacerbated, in what can be referred to as a “New Cold War.”
At the
same time, global regional conflicts continue to be waged and expanded, be
it in the Middle East, Central Africa or Central Asia, with coups and regime
change being furthered in Eastern Europe, South America and across the
globe.
However, these two major global issues: regional wars and conflict
and the New Cold War, are not separate, but inherently linked. An
exacerbation of conflict, in any and all regions, will only serve to
strengthen the political-strategic conflict between the US-NATO alliance and
the Russia-China alliance.
All that is required for a new major world war is just one spark: whether it
comes in the form of a war between Pakistan and India, or a military strike
on Iran, in which case China and Russia would not sit idly by as they did
with Iraq.
A strike on Iran, particularly with nuclear missiles, as is
proposed, would result in World War III.
So why does strategy on the part of
the US and NATO continue to push in this direction?
As
George Orwell
once wrote (paraphrasing):
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical
society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new
version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In
principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of
starvation.
The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects
and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to
keep the very structure of society intact.
See "The
Theory And Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism"
A New World War would be a global war waged by a global ruling class against
the citizens of the world, with the aim of maintaining and reshaping
hierarchical society to serve their own interests.
It would indeed symbolize
a New World War for a New World Order. In a globalized world, all conflict
has global implications; the task at hand is whether the people can realize
that war is not waged against a “distant” or “foreign” enemy, but against
all people of the world.
Herman Goering, Hitler’s second in command, explained the concept of war
when he was standing trial at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes, when he
stated,
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” and that, “Naturally,
the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in
America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
But, after all,
it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a
simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a
fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
When
Goering was corrected that in a democracy, “the people have some say in the
matter through their elected representatives,” Goering responded:
Oh, that is all well and good, but, 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 danger.
It works the same way in any
country.[131]
Endnotes
[1] Ian Traynor, Russia edgy at spread of US bases in its backyard. The
Guardian: January 10, 2002:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jan/10/afghanistan.russia
[2] Michael Mainville, U.S. bases overseas show new strategy. Post Gazette:
July 26, 2004: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04208/351890.stm
[3] BBC, US considers Polish missile base. BBC News: November 17, 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4445284.stm
[4] Adrian Blomfield, Russia piles pressure on EU over missile shield. The
Telegraph: November 15, 2007:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1569495/Russia-piles-pressure-on-EU-over-missile-shield.html
[5] Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith, U.S.-Russian Team Deems Missile
Shield in Europe Ineffective. The Washington Post: May 19, 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR2009051803055.html
[6] MARK MAZZETTI, U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work. The New York
Times: December 3, 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-iran.html
[7] ROBERT BURNS, U.S. Might Negotiate on Missile Defense. The Washington
Post: April 24, 2007:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042400871.html
[8] Luke Harding, Russia threatening new cold war over missile defence. The
Guardian: April 11, 2007:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/11/usa.topstories3
[9] EDWARD WONG and ALAN COWELL, Russia and China Attack U.S. Missile Shield
Plan. The New York Times: May 24, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/world/24china.html
[10] AP, Russia Warns of Military Response If U.S.-Czech Missile Defense
Agreement Approved. Fox News: July 8, 2008:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,378065,00.html
[11] THOM SHANKER and NICHOLAS KULISH, Russia Lashes Out on Missile Deal.
The New York Times: August 15, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/world/europe/16poland.html
[12] Russia angry over US missile shield. Al-Jazeera: August 15, 2008:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/08/200881514010734640.html
[13] Harry de Quetteville and Andrew Pierce, Russia threatens nuclear attack
on Poland over US missile shield deal. The Telegraph: August 15, 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/2566005/Russia-threatens-nuclear-attack-on-Poland-over-US-missile-shield-deal.html
[14] Xinhua, Obama says missile defense system in Eastern Europe to go
forward if "Iranian threat" persists. China View: April 6, 2009:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/06/content_11136423.htm
[15] Dmitry Solovyov, Russia could deploy missiles near Poland: officer.
Reuters: May 21, 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54K3HH20090521
[16] AP, Medvedev warns US against Eastern Europe missile shield. Gulf News:
July 11, 2009: http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Russia/10330523.html
[17] David Blair, Russia and China warn against war with Iran. The
Telegraph: September 18, 2007:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1563593/Russia-and-China-warn-against-war-with-Iran.html
[18] Op. Ed, Iran and China to strengthen cooperation. Press TV: July 27,
2008: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=64942§ionid=3510303
[19] Xinhua, Iran warns any attack would start world war. China Daily:
August 31, 2008:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-08/31/content_6984250.htm
[20] Xinhua, Minister: Iran, Russia to boost military cooperation. Xinhua
News Agency: February 16, 2009:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/16/content_10824531.htm
[21] Tony Halpin, Russia ratchets up US tensions with arms sales to Iran and
Venezuela. The Time Online: September 19, 2008:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4781027.ece
[22] James Kanter, OPEC warns against military conflict with Iran. The New
York Times: July 10, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/business/worldbusiness/10iht-opec.4.14403619.html?_r=1
[23] Charles Tannock, Backing Kazakhstan's 'great game'. The Guardian:
February 18, 2008:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/18/backingkazakhstansgreatgame
[24] DT, Security alliances led by Russia, China link up. Daily Times:
October 6, 2007:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\10\06\story_6-10-2007_pg4_3
[25] Press TV, Iran could join CSTO. Press TV: May 14, 2007:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=9808§ionid=3510212
[26] FNA, CSTO to Increase Security Cooperation with Iran. Fars News Agency:
April 17, 2009: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8801280724
[27] RFE, Russian-Led CSTO Grouping Adds Military Dimension. Radio Free
Europe: February 9, 2009:
http://www.rferl.org/content/Rapid_Reaction_Force_Adds_Military_Dimension_To_CSTO/1379324.html
[28] RIA Novosti, CSTO leaders sign rapid-reaction force deal without
Belarus. RIA Novosti: June 14, 2009:
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090614/155246713.html
[29] Tony Halpin, Russia and China announce new era of military cooperation.
The Times Online: April 29, 2009:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6188506.ece
[30] Li Xing, China and Russia broaden energy cooperation. China Daily: June
17, 2009: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/17/content_8295061.htm
[31] Xinhua, Russia approves China oil pipeline plan. Xinhua News Agency:
April 13, 2009:
http://www.chinadaily.net/china/2009-04/13/content_7673401.htm
[32] Fred Weir, Russia-China war games battle extremists, separatists.
Christian Science Monitor: July 22, 2009:
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/07/22/russia-china-war-games-battle-extremists-separatists/
[33] Civil.ge, Six Die in S.Ossetia Shootout. Civil Georgia: August 2, 2008:
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=18871
[34] BBC, Russia vows to defend S Ossetia. BBC News: August 5, 2008:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7543099.stm
[35] BBC, Heavy Fighting in South Ossetia. BBC News: August 8, 2008:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7546639.stm
[36] Michel Chossudovsky, War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US
Military Confrontation? Global Research: August 10, 2008:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9788
[37] Musa Sadulayev, Georgia: In 'State of War' Over South Ossetia. The New
York Sun: August 9, 2008:
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/georgia-in-state-of-war-over-south-ossetia/83529/
[38] Deborah Haynes, Georgia pulls 1,000 troops from Iraq. The Times Online:
August 9, 2008:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4491866.ece
[39] BBC, US military advisers arrive in Georgia. BBC News: February 27,
2002: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1843909.stm
[40] Tim Dyhouse, Green Berets now in Georgia: U.S. Special Forces are
training Georgian soldiers to fight radical Muslims. VFW Magazine: June-July
2002: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LIY/is_10_89/ai_87509631
[41] NewsMax.com Wires, Special Forces to Train Georgian Military. News Max:
February 28, 2002:
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/27/144331.shtml
[42] Reuters, U.S.-Georgia training begins amid Russia strain. Georgian
Daily: July 15, 2008:
http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4305&Itemid=67&lang=ka
[43] AP, Georgia, US start military exercises despite tensions with Russia.
CNews: July 15, 2008:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/07/15/6162566-ap.html
[44] Kavkaz Center, Russian military gangs ready to invade Georgia. U.S.
sends thousand marines in response. Kavkaz Center: July 10, 2008:
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2008/07/10/9971.shtml
[45] News Europe, US army exercises begin in Georgia. Al-Jazeera: July 15,
2008:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/07/200871515107741998.html
[46] AFP, Russia: US Military Advisers In Georgia Ahead Of Conflict.
Morningstar: August 12, 2008:
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200808121135DOWJONESDJONLINE000420_univ.xml
[47] RT, NATO encouraged Georgia – Russian envoy. Russia Today: August 9,
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