Powder Keg USA: US heading toward fascism and civil war

“In the long run it is far more dangerous to adhere to illusion than to face what the actual truth is.” – David Bohm

It is very important that we now divest ourselves of any remaining willful ignorance. It is too late, and the stakes too high, for denial and wishful thinking to persist. Dream of better times, generate and hold fast to a more noble vision, but do not let our view of reality be skewed by a fear of facing the truth.

A year and a half ago I came across information pertaining to a number of very large issues, and was compelled to research them, and their inter-relationships, implications, and probable outcomes, and then to summarize as concisely as possible these research findings and analyses. What I concluded then, in October of 2006, was that a number of very large patterns were in motion which, as they unfold, will profoundly affect the US and the world, and further, that the United States was a powder keg, set to explode. Less than eighteen months later, we can see that the analysis was clearly correct, in all major facets, and the US is even more clearly, a powder keg waiting to explode. Here’s why, and here are some of the implications. The patterns are of profound significance and are unfolding rapidly, with increasing speed, therefore understanding them and forming appropriate responses is of urgent necessity.

From the October 2006 research summary:

A number of points which are now either undeniable, or at least have increasing and very strong evidence to support them:

1. The United States is in a deep and growing crisis of legitimacy, a serious and deepening internal political crisis, with the result of very significant and mounting instability – a crisis which will only get worse by ignoring it, and will be further exacerbated by the other related unfolding crises, both manufactured and otherwise. The following inter-related dynamics will affect the growing US political crisis profoundly.

2. The US is on the verge of economic collapse. 14 months later, this now is admitted by nearly everyone. When economic collapse hits the US, the political crisis will move from deeply serious to explosive as public discontent reaches a flashpoint. US elites are most certainly taking actions in advance to deal with the deepening political crisis.

3. Peak oil is about to hit globally, with profound economic, social and political implications for the US and the world. That was the best analysis in fall 2006. It now has hit, and is unfolding, as is being admitted. As predicted, oil prices rose dramatically, causing global economic shock and downturn. Oil prices went from US$ 50 a barrel in 2006 to US$ 100 a barrel in 2007. Between 2002 and 2007 world oil prices rose from US$ 20/barrel to US$ 100/barrel – a five-fold increase, again, as predicted. The economic ramifications are severe and growing as energy costs for all manufacturing and shipping rise exponentially.

In case you haven’t been watching:

World oil production is expected to decline sharply by 2030: report

EWG_Oilreport_Summary_10-2007.pdf (application/pdf Object)

4. A political scandal of simply tectonic magnitude is unfolding rapidly within the US – speaking from October 2006 - on top of the already precarious situation of a long-standing and slowly deepening political crisis. (Remember that the slowly deepening crisis of legitimacy which unfolded over decades within the Soviet Union led ultimately to a “tipping point” in which the entire structure collapsed, virtually overnight.) In September and October 2006 two things happened which moved the US domestic political crisis from deep and growing, to precipitous and potentially cataclysmic in terms of its effects, as least as far as the political and business elite of the country are concerned. One: Hugo Chavez stated before the UN that there is growing evidence, and a growing number of people around the world and within the US are coming to believe, that elements within the US government actively participated in the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11. The media around the world and across the US reported on a story that was too big to silence: the story of the accusation, that is. A much more important event occurred that fall: the number of US citizens who believe it is very likely or somewhat likely that elements within the US government were actively involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US reached 36% - and the number of Americans who do not believe the official story reached a stunning 84%. As of October 2006 only 16% of Americans believed the official story. This is a cataclysmic scale crisis of legitimacy, a scandal of truly tectonic proportions. This is what I would call a “house of cards event.”

By now, fourteen months later, over 100 scholars, prominent military, intelligence, government and media figures have stated that the official story is untenable, and that there are serious questions as to active involvement in the attacks by high level US government officials and agents. The former head of the Russian air force has stated the official story is impossible (that statement actually came in fall 2001). Former German parliamentarian Helmut Schmidt has said that WTC-7 was brought down by controlled demolition, in order to conceal the evidence as to who orchestrated the attack, which was coordinated out of that same building. Former assistant editor for the Wall Street Journal, and creator of Reaganomics, Paul Craig Roberts, has said that the evidence is incontrovertible that WTC-7 was brought down by controlled demolition. Former Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga has publicly declared that, “the disastrous attack was planned and carried out by the American CIA and the Mossad” – and went on to state that every intelligence agency in the world knows this.

The domestic political crisis in the US, though smoothed over by the network media, is fast approaching a tipping point, and the political and business elite are highly aware of this fact. When popular discontent is already deep and wide, and a scandal of such magnitude is erupting, even the conditions that set off the first American Revolution seem to pale in comparison. Such gross criminal activity on the part of domestic elites is bound to provoke a full scale crisis of confidence, to put it mildly.

This makes Watergate look like a love-in. This is the stuff of a Boston Tea Party. US elites are not taking this lightly, of course.

5. For geo-strategic reasons, primarily control over world energy resources, as well as for reasons of domestic instability and internal political crisis (I’ll explain why in a moment), the US is likely to attack Iran, if the people of the US and the world do not stop a government that is out of control. This is only becoming more and more evident.

6. An attack on Iran would require an enormous pretext, given that the American people do not want even to continue the war in Iraq, let alone expand it. Opposition to the war in Iraq has now grown to approximately 70%. Yet the US government seems intent on expanding the war in the Middle East, and attacking Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. (Controlling the Middle East means controlling approximately 70% of world oil supplies. Controlling world oil supplies means dominating the global economy and the world, as PNAC and the Pentagon have openly stated is their aim. Peak oil only adds to their sense of urgency.)

(Note that none of the remaining US presidential candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul and Mike Gravel, are willing to stop the current trend toward escalating war in the Middle East, so counting on electoral change is patently foolish, unless somehow Ron Paul or Mike Gravel were to win. Obama and Hillary have both said with regard to Iran, “Everything is on the table” – nuclear first strike and all.)

Not only would an attack on Iran risk ecological and humanitarian disaster, as well as seriously risk a world war, but would require the greatest of pretexts to get the American people to go along with it. In the words of the neo-con think tank PNAC, it would seem to require a “cataclysmic event,” or as Zbig himself described it in his 1997 book on global geo-strategy, The Grand Chessboard, a “Pearl Harbor type event.”

This begs a very frightening question. Following my analysis in the fall of 2006, less than six months later, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that just such a false flag event, a terrorist attack on the US, “blamed on Iran….and a quote, unquote, defensive retaliation against Iran,” was a likely scenario. Congressman Ron Paul has also stated that he believes the danger of a Gulf of Tonkin event is great. (He is softening the blow for us. It would be, rather, much more severe than an offshore event which would be needed, in all likelihood, given the extremely strong public opposition to expanding or even continuing the war.)

Remember also that former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Tommy Franks said in an interview a couple of years ago that if there is another terrorist attack on the US it would likely be the end of democracy – Congress would not likely be reconvened, he said.

Of course, the final destruction of what remains of democracy, freedom and civil rights in America, under a police state, would provoke civil war. Again, the elite surely know this very well. Civil war in turn gives further pretext and justification for crackdown on dissent. “Domestic terrorism” charges will be used to eliminate all political opposition and dissenting voices – most likely via media spin, while individuals and groups are quietly rounded up in mass arrests, without trial or due process of law.

Witness the Green Zone and giant high-security embassy in Bagdad: US forces are training in maintaining full dominance within a setting of permanent civil war. Iraq is the laboratory for what is to be applied at home. War justifies repression, repression ensures continuing war, and war and repression yield dominance and plunder. It is a simple yet effective strategy, at least in the short run. Permanent war means a permanent state of emergency, as well as great profits for the military-industrial complex. It would be a return to the walled cities of feudal times, backed by new mercenaries armies such as Blackwater. Outside the walls, chaos, violence, war and poverty reign. Inside the walls, it is a pampered police state for those who are sufficiently obedient. It is a very dark road that the US has set upon. It is a path into what one might most appropriately call feudal fascism, both at home and abroad.

Note also that this current trajectory ties in perfectly with the business elites’ agenda for a “new security environment” in “Fortress North America” within the framework of feudal fascist rule via the NACC and SPP. Canada and Mexico will thus also be drawn into this morass unless resistance and an alternative vision are quickly generated. US business elites want Canadian oil and Mexican labour, as well as continental “security.” The popular movement to resist this agenda of fascism under continental corporate rule must therefore be international. We are now clearly in this together.

In each of these cases, the evidence has only grown more compelling.

Put the pieces together.

a) Deep and growing crisis of legitimacy in the US.

b) Rapidly unfolding economic crisis in the US, which will only exacerbate the
underlying political crisis.

c) Peak oil crisis unfolding rapidly, compounding both the economic and political
crises.

d) A “house of cards event” emerging rapidly with the 9/11 scandal – a scandal big enough to bring down not just a government, but an entire socio-political order, a la the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90.

e) A war planned on Iran to secure geostrategically vital world energy reserves, requiring a giant pretext to get the American people to accept expansion of war in the Middle East, when what they want now is to end it.

f) The warnings of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski that such an unfolding of events is “likely.”

g) Tommy Franks statement that another event would precipitate the foreclosure of democracy in America.

Conclusion:

Elements of the US political and business elite are sufficiently desperate, power hungry and reckless as to consider and plan for a series of events, which, if successful, would resolve the political crisis in the US - by dissolving democracy and invoking a police state - while securing control over the majority of the world’s remaining energy reserves in an era of diminishing oil supplies. For some, this must seem a wonderful win-win scenario. Of course, for the vast majority, this means living hell.

If unsuccessful, the consequences may be global thermonuclear annihilation of the entire Northern Hemisphere – but you have to take some risks, right?

There are other profound implications, such as global economic collapse, due to the strangulation of oil shipments and spiking oil prices within the context of an already volatile and unstable global economy, but the very real potential of nuclear disaster tops the list, followed closely by the nightmare scenario of the re-emergence of fascism in the Western world.

By the way, Russia and China are now economic and military allies with Iran, and both are nuclear powers with ICBMs. Word is, the mad fools in Washington, or those at the helm at least, are actively seeking a confrontation with two of the world’s military, economic and nuclear superpowers. The insanity is truly mind-boggling.

As we speak, five air craft carrier groups are stationed off Iran, the war propaganda continues, preparing the public mind for acquiescence, and the political crisis in the US sinks deeper, while the US economy slides steadily off a cliff, and the peak oil crunch continues to unfold.

Think about it. This is end game. The US elite know this. We should harbour no illusions.

Note that this entire analysis does not even mention one giant and now undeniable pattern which is also rapidly unfolding, by clearly conscious design, and that is the war on democracy and the assault on freedom and civil liberties, which has been on-going and escalating since September 11 in particular. (It began earlier, but 9/11 was the “catalyst” to greatly speed up the process.) Consider the above in light of this.

The “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) has been used, and it is increasingly self-evident that it has been very consciously used, for the purpose of creating a state of permanent global imperial warfare on the one hand, and in order to “win” the war on democracy on the other. “Winning” in this context means global dominance is consolidated for the transnational business elite who already dominate the governments of the G-8 and the Western world. “Winning” is thus slavery for humanity – at home and abroad – and the destruction of democracy and freedom.

Note also that the Washington Post published a leaked memo from the Pentagon which was addressed to high level military and government officials, and which stated that the Global War on Terror is to be completed, won, by October 2008. The memo made explicit that this was a performance-related objective, communicating in definite terms that pay would be affected if targets are not reached.

What do we conclude from that? Bush and Cheney said this would be a war without end. Iraq has bogged down into civil war and quagmire and drags on endlessly, while neocons and Democrats bicker and posture while agreeing to “stay the course” and keep the troops in occupation position. Now the Pentagon wants the war wrapped up, completed and won within the next nine months (before the 2008 election). What dark entity is the Pentagon planning to birth in that time frame? What does the Pentagon consider “completion” or “winning” of the “global war on terror” – particularly when any intelligent observer can see that it is not a war on terrorism, but a war of empire and a war on democracy? Are we to assume then that the Pentagon has set a firm target, and that global consolidation of the empire, particularly, secure control over the Mid-East oil reserves, is to be complete by October 2008? That the war on democracy is to be won by October 2008? I think that we must give some very sober-minded consideration to these statements, in light of recent developments. A tremendous amount is at stake here.

I believe it is time we speak the truth directly. This is a war on the people of the earth. It must stop. And it is the people of the earth who must stop it.

I would say it is time for the people of the United States, and the people of the world, to stand up, and say in no uncertain terms, that this has gone far enough, and to demand, a) an end to military adventurism and imperial designs, and b) a respect for human rights, civil liberties, constitutional democracy, freedom and the self-determination of peoples in all nations – and in action, and not simply rhetoric.

Stop the madness!

People of the United States, people of the world, speak now. The stakes are high. This is our future. This is our children’s future. Too much is at stake to leave the future of humanity in the hands of those who are drunk with power. It is time to take the power back.

The future is in our hands. If we continue to give our power to a small band of elites, the above scenario will most likely unfold in all its terrible fullness. It is up to us, as always, the people of the Earth. Choose wisely. The powerful rule only when and if we give them our power. Remove that power and they fall like a house of cards. The Soviet Empire’s collapse proved this. It is now time for the collapse of the Western empire, and the birth of true democracy. Stay alert. The story is not yet over. We can write the next chapter if we so choose. Allowing the power elite to write it for us would be disastrous. Pick up the pen. Reclaim your power. Let us write a better story for the future of humanity and the earth.

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: when he first appears, he is a protector." - Plato

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - U.S. President James Madison

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death". - Adolph Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war ... 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 ... 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 to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, speaking before the Nuremberg Trials.

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened". - Josef Stalin

But it can’t happen here. Or can it?

Do we really believe that certain countries are immune from the plots of evil men?

Really now.

JTR,

February 1, 2008

“War can never stop terrorism because war is the ultimate form of terrorism.”
- John Deer

“Empires don’t bring democracy, they control people…..Predictably, anyone who threatens imperial power is treated as if they were, to put it mildly, a trouble-maker, or even a terrorist….No-one in power really wants democracy, because democracy would challenge their power structures.” - Tony Benn

Noam Chomsky on Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest For Global Dominance

“The End of America”: Naomi Wolf Warns U.S. in Slow Descent into Fascism - Democracy Now!

Power to the People (In Suits )

Ex-Italian Prime Minister - '9/11 Carried Out By CIA and Mossad' // Current

911 Proof

9-11 Research: Insider Trading

911 - Aftermath : Unanswered Questions from 9/11 (1 of 3)

THE TRUTH & LIES OF 9/11

911 L.A. Symposium - Webster Griffin Tarpley on 911 Evidence

Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.

The War On Terror Is A Fabrication - Michel Chossudovsky

America's "Long War" From the Truman Doctrine to the NeoConservatives - Chossudovsky

Noam Chomsky on U.S. policy towards Iran

Chomsky: Do the Democrats have a different answer on Iran?

Brzezinski warns of Pearl Harbor type event, a pretext for war on Iran

Ron Paul - Gulf of Tonkin

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama & John Edwards Equal No Change

Noam Chomsky - The Political system in the USA

Changes - Presidential Candidates feat. Bowie

Vote for Change? Atrocity-Linked U.S. Officials Advising Democratic, GOP Presidential Frontrunners - Democracy Now!

YouTube - Dennis Kucinich War on Iraq

YouTube - Dennis Kucinich - On Iraq

Pirates, Emperors and the Masters of the Universe - Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky on human destiny

Big Ideas That Changed The World : Democracy-Tony Benn

Overview: Geopolitics 2006-2008

America: A Fork In the Road

Iran: Oil, Nukes & War, Pretexts for Martial Law

On nukes in Iran – or rather, the second WMD pretext for mid-east war:

The U.S. Defense Intelligence estimate, as well as the analysis made by the CIA, tells us that Iran is 10 years away, at the earliest, from developing nuclear weapons. Why then the rush to set off a powder keg in the Middle East? Clearly this is another WMD scare tactic to create a pretext for war, as we saw in 2003 with Iraq. It was a lie then, and it is a lie now. The real motive is oil.

The biggest threat by far, with regards to nuclear weapons, is not from the few that Iran might possibly develop over the coming 10 years, but from the global conflict between already existing nuclear super-powers – the U.S., Russia and China – that might erupt as a result from a U.S. attack on Iran. If we are at all sane, we will do everything in our power to keep the U.S., Israel or NATO from attacking Iran and throwing a match into this powder keg. Any future danger posed by Iran pales completely in comparison to the danger we all face if the U.S. or Israel launches an attack. (See War on Iran: A Most Dangerous Gambit.)

If we are genuinely concerned with nuclear proliferation, there are far saner voices than those of Bush, Cheney and Rice. Military analyst Sergei Plekhanov is one. He warns that the most serious threat posed by Iran lies not in any future arms development in that nation, but in the aforementioned possibility of conflict between nuclear superpowers that may be set off by a U.S. attack on Iran. With Iran, Russia and China having formed a military and economic alliance, the danger is real. Joint military training maneuvers have already begun.

“When we think about the danger of nuclear war nowadays, the mind zeros in on North Korea and Iran and stays there, preoccupied with the fact that North Korea has a few nuclear bombs, while Iran may or may not build a few of its own in the next decade. The international community is tying itself in knots trying to respond to the colossal threats to world peace and security that these two countries present.

“Now, the reality is that of the world’s estimated 22,000 nuclear weapons, about 21,000 belong to the U.S. and Russia, each of the two possessing nearly equal numbers and keeping about 1,000 of them ready for launching within 30 minutes.

“If we should worry about the existence of nuclear weapons with their unique capacity to put an end to human life on this planet, it is odd that we overlook the thousands and peer at the murky single digits through a magnifying glass and tremble with fear.

“What happened to the clarity of mind that defined world thinking about nuclear weapons 20 years ago, when it was obvious that the really dangerous nukes were those in massive numbers that the Americans and the Russians trained on each other and were ready to use on a few minutes’ notice?

“The new U.S.-Russian relationship, as it is currently evolving, contains a potential for very serious threats to international security. In a major international crisis, conflict between the two major nuclear powers may escalate to extreme levels.”

- Sergei Plekhanov, Truthdig - The Nightmare Scenario

For a sane response to the question of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, we should listen less to Bush, Cheney and Rice, who are proven liars, and more to the people like Sergei Plekhanov and senior CIA veteran analyst Ray McGovern.

“Preaching to Iran and others about not acquiring nuclear weapons is, indeed, like the village drunk preaching sobriety — the more so as our government keeps developing new genres of nuclear weapons and keeps looking the other way as Israel enhances its own nuclear arsenal. Not a pretty moral picture, that. Indeed, it reminds me of the Scripture passage about taking the plank out of your own eye before insisting that the speck be removed from another’s.”

- Ray McGovern, senior veteran CIA analyst for 27 years,

from JFK through Bush I, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

“The ideal approach would, of course, be to destroy all nuclear weapons in the world and ban them for the future, with a very intrusive global inspection regime to verify compliance. A total ban is worth holding up as an ideal, and I think we must. But this approach seems unlikely to bear fruit over the next four years. So what then?

“How about a nuclear-free Middle East? Could the US make that happen? We could if we had moral clarity — the underpinning necessary to bring it about. Each time this proposal is raised, the Syrians, for example, clap their hands in feigned joyful anticipation, saying, “Of course such a pact would include Israel, right?” The issue is then dropped from all discussion by U.S. policymakers. Required: not only moral clarity but also what Thomas Aquinas labeled the precondition for all virtue, courage. In this context, courage would include a refusal to be intimidated by inevitable charges of anti-Semitism.

“The reality is that, except for Israel, the Middle East is nuclear free. But the discussion cannot stop there. It is not difficult to understand why the first leaders of Israel, with the Holocaust experience written indelibly on their hearts and minds, and feeling surrounded by perceived threats to the fledgling state’s existence, wanted the bomb. And so, before the Syrians or Iranians, for example, get carried away with self-serving applause for the nuclear-free Middle East proposal, they will have to understand that for any such negotiation to succeed it must have as a concomitant aim the guarantee of an Israel able to live in peace and protect itself behind secure borders. That guarantee has got to be part of the deal.

“That the obstacles to any such agreement are formidable is no excuse not trying. But the approach would have to be new and everything would have to be on the table. Persisting in a state of denial about Israel’s nuclear weapons is dangerously shortsighted; it does nothing but aggravate fears among the Arabs and create further incentive for them to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.

“A sensible approach would also have to include a willingness to engage the Iranians directly, attempt to understand their perspective, and discern what the United States and Israel could do to alleviate their concerns.

“To remember why the United States is no favorite in Tehran, one needs to go back at least to 1953 when the U.S. and Great Britain overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Premier Mohammad Mossadeq as part of a plan to insure access to Iranian oil. They then emplaced the young Shah in power who, with his notorious secret police, proved second to none in cruelty. The Shah ruled from 1953 to 1979. Much resentment can build up over a whole generation. His regime fell like a house of cards, when supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini rose up to do some regime change of their own.

““The crazies” are not finished. …In an immediate sense, with U.S. military power unrivaled, they can be seen as “crazy like a fox,” with a value system in which “might makes right.” Operating out of that value system, and now sporting the more respectable misnomer/moniker “neoconservative,” they are convinced that they know exactly what they are doing. They have a clear ideology and a geopolitical strategy, which leap from papers they put out at the Project for the New American Century over recent years.

“The very same men who, acting out of that paradigm, brought us the war in Iraq are now focusing on Iran, which they view as the only remaining obstacle to American domination of the entire oil-rich Middle East.

“Has everyone forgotten that deterrence worked for some 40 years, while for most of those years the U.S. and the USSR had not by any means lost their lust for ever-enhanced nuclear weapons?

“As was the case with Iraq two years ago, there is no imminent Iranian strategic threat to Americans — or, in reality, to anyone. Even if Iran acquired a nuclear capability, there is no reason to believe that it would risk a suicidal first strike on Israel. That, after all, is what mutual deterrence is all about; it works both ways.”

- CIA veteran Ray McGovern,

Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...

There is no rational basis for attacking Iran if our concern is the danger of nuclear warfare. This much should be obvious. What then are the real motives of the U.S.?

Peak Oil, Geopolitics & Imperial Warfare

Imperial warfare is, of course, not new to the U.S. or to the world, nor is it a recent invention of the Washington neo-conservatives. Economic interests and hegemony – first regional, then global – have been the primary and consistent over-riding objectives of U.S. foreign policy since the Indian Wars, the Mexican-American War, and the conquest of the gems of the Caribbean in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.

“We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population… In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality… We should cease to talk about vague and…unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.”

- Chief long-term strategic planner for the U.S. National Security Council,
George F. Kennan, in a 1948 State Department Brief: the now-declassified NSC 68.

This is not new. Bush is only the latest of war criminals. He is the successor to empire - an empire that is in crisis and crumbling, desperate to shore itself up while it may still be possible.

“The Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a (bipartisan) “Post War” foreign policy framework, which provides the basis for the planning of the contemporary wars and atrocities including the setting up of torture chambers, concentration camps and the extensive use of prohibited weapons directed against civilians.

“From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the “Truman Doctrine”. Despite significant policy differences, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush have carried out this global military agenda.

“What distinguishes the Bush administration in relation to the historical record of US sponsored crimes and atrocities, is that the concentration camps, targeted assassinations and torture chambers are now openly considered as legitimate forms of intervention, which sustain “the global war on terrorism” and support the spread of Western democracy.

“To reverse the tide of war requires a massive campaign of networking and outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, mosques, schools, universities, municipalities, on the dangers of a US sponsored war which contemplates the use of nuclear weapons. The message should be loud and clear: It is not Iran which is a threat to global security but the United States of America.

“The corporate media also bear a heavy responsibility for the cover-up of US sponsored war crimes. Until recently these war preparations involving the use of nuclear weapons have been scarcely covered by the corporate media. The latter must also be forcefully challenged for their biased coverage of the Middle East war.

“What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media lies and distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US Administration and of those governments which support it, its war agenda as well as its so-called “Homeland Security agenda” which has already defined the contours of a police State.”

- Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, Ottawa University, founder and director of the Center for Research on Globalization

“Intelligent people realize that American claims to be a moral and democratic force are mere pretense behind which hides a policy of military aggression.”

- Paul Craig Roberts, former associate editor, Wall Street Journal

Imperial warfare has always been primarily about securing resources - land and labour being the first and most primary, followed closely by minerals and other resources. Control of energy resources - whether they be in the form of feudal land-holdings, slave holdings, serfs, forests, or more recently, the energy source the industrial world runs on, oil – has always been central to the objectives of empire.

The politics of oil, in this context, is the politics of empire, in one particular and very central facet. Peak oil simply adds to the urgency of controlling world oil reserves. With world oil production near or at its peak, oil prices will rise dramatically, the era of cheap energy will soon be over, demand will outstrip supply, and controlling world oil reserves, more than ever before, will mean holding global economic hegemony. The stakes are high for the seekers of empire; as they are high for the rest of us, due to the risks and bloodshed involved in such maneuvers for control.

The Real Threats We Face

We should bear in mind a few things. One, the CIA and Defense Intelligence have stated that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons for another 10 years. Two, the risk posed by Iran anytime in the near future is negligible compared to the extreme risks entailed in an attack on Iran. Three, the Bush administration lied repeatedly, and in much the same way, to get the American people to accept war on Iraq – which by all honest accounts has been a disaster, not to mention an atrocity. Four, both “pre-emptive war” and regime change are acts of aggression, and as such are war crimes under both international law and the U.S. Constitution. Five, with the nuclear proliferation pretext so manifestly a deceit, the objective of war on Iran is clearly control of the fourth largest oil reserves in the Middle East – which the neocons’ PNAC documents state clearly and explicitly. Six, such an attack would entail mass murder, and for no less vulgar reasons than control of energy reserves, economic hegemony, and imperial ambition.

Finally, a last consideration, and a very serious one, is the risk entailed in the pretext to war, and not simply in the act or war or the ensuing fall-out. This is, aside from the real possibility of WW III, one of the greatest dangers of an attack on Iran. The neocon “crazies” - as many apparently referred to them during the 1980’s and `90’s, before they came to the center of power in Washington - have made it clear in their “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC) planning and strategy papers, that their objectives of “full spectrum dominance” cannot be achieved in any short time, unless there is a “catalyzing event” of sufficient magnitude, another Pearl Harbour-type event. We had one such horrific event, but that may not be enough to expand the “Global War on Terror” at home or across the Middle East. A further pretext may be needed, and an unlikely source has warned of just that.

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinksi warned the Senate this February 1 of just such an “event.” Read the following carefully. Better yet, read “Zbig”’s statement, then watch the video clip as he emphasizes his stark warning.

“[A] plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran [is]… Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in, quote/unquote, ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran…”
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 1, 2007

YouTube - Brzezinski predicts provoking war with Iran.

A second 9/11 attack, possibly of greater magnitude, would be a horror in itself. But when we also consider General Tommy Franks statements on such an event, the horror becomes an even greater nightmare. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Tommy Franks has stated that the next terrorist attack would likely be the end of democracy: the Constitution would be suspended, martial law declared, and Congress probably not reconvened.

The implications of what is unfolding are almost unthinkable. Yet, we would be wise to give them due thought. If there is no resistance to the madness being orchestrated, we may see a very dark time ahead. Fortunately, there is great, broad and world-wide popular resistance to this grim direction of what can only honestly be called Machiavellian imperial ambition. The resistance now must be galvanized. We may be in for a serious challenge ahead.

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

~ James Madison

“The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.”
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd American President

“Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.” - Thomas Jefferson

J. Todd Ring

April 5, 2007

YouTube - Brzezinski predicts provoking war with Iran.

* White House brushes off CIA report on Iran: report | Top News | Reuters.com

Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern: British Sailors the Justification for War against Iran?

The War on Iran - Michel Chossudovsky

Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...

Alex Jones Interviews Scott Ritter

Appetite for Oil Fuels America’s Warmongering

Smoking Gun:The CIA’s Interest in Peak Oil

Democracy Now! | Target Iran: Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter and Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh on White House Plans for Regime Change

Rep.Ron Paul on Iran: The Next Neocon Target « Dissident

Truthdig - Interviews - Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran

Chomsky on Iran - It all comes down to control

Gangsters for Capitalism

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

ZNet |Foreign Policy | American Empire For Dummies « Dissident

ZNet |Foreign Policy | We Had a Democracy Once , But You Crushed It

Iraq War Timeline: Lie by Lie

Truthdig - The Nightmare Scenario

War on Iran: A Most Dangerous Gambit.

Nuclear Bunker Buster Bombs againt Iran: This Way Lies Madness

Brzezinski: Avoid disaster with Iran

Evidence of US coercion of IAEA members against Iran revealed

Looking for a Gulf of Tonkin-like Incident

Why is the US press silent on Brzezinski’s warnings of war against Iran?

The Pentagon’s “Second 911″

The Other 9/11

***The Police State Is Closer Than You Think - by Paul Craig Roberts « Dissident

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann: U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Gone

Olbermann: Bush Signs Military Commissions Act

Olbermann: The Death of Habeas Corpus

Harvard Law Students Hold Funeral for US Constitution

Impending Police State in America: Interview with Professor Francis Boyle

Texas Congressman Urges Repeal of Neo-Fascist Laws

Bush and the Forbidden C-Word by Rev. William Alberts

The Criminalization of US Foreign Policy

Bill Moyers: The Secret Government - PBS Video

The Power of Nightmares: BBC Documentary Shreds the War on Terror Myth

Bill Moyers: Media, Democracy and Pillage by the Elite - Part 1

Mind Control - History Chanel Video Documentary

*** Even Conservatives Hate Republicans Now

Dems' Big Middle Finger to the American Voter

Empire v. Democracy: Why Nemesis Is at Our Door - by Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

America’s nuclear ticking bomb

Peak Oil intro - CBC 2min.

‘Living on an illusion’ - CNN video on oil depletion

How to avoid oil wars, terrorism, and economic collapse | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Peak Oil alert - Houston Business Journal:

An Open Letter to Greg Palast on Peak Oil

Will The End of Oil Mean The End of America?

We Were Warned: Tomorrow’s Oil Crisis - CNN

The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror

The War for Oil - BBC - Part 1/3

War for Oil - BBC - Part 2/3

War for Oil - BBC - Part 3/3

Video - Robert Newman History of oil - Google Video

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil - order video

Making Sweden an OIL-FREE Society

Oil Wars or Adaptation?

Iran attack would cause market chaos - The Business - London's First Global Business Magazine

OPEC sells the Dollar

Digital Journal - Tehran Times: Iran Has Started Substituting Euros for Dollars in Oil Sales

* Hysteria Over Iran and a New Cold War with Russia: Peak Oil, Petrocurrencies and the Emerging Multi-Polar World « Dissident

ZNet |Economy | China and the Dollar

ZNet |Economy | Dollar Crisis and American Empire

Crouching Chinese Tiger, Tumbling US Economy

Paul Craig Roberts:The Vicious Downward Cycle of the American Economy

War, Neoliberalism & Empire – Chomsky

YouTube - Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex .

Eisenhower's Worst Nightmare Now Harsh Reality For U.S. « Dissident

YouTube - Bob Dylan - Masters Of War - full version

YouTube - Texas Republican slams Bush "demented philosophy of conquest"

Gulf of Tonkin 2: Iran

Left-Right Alliance Against War? - by Jon Basil Utley

International Mobilization To Stop U.S. Attack on Iran « Dissident

StopIranWar.com

North America: Timeline to a Fascist State

Overview: Geopolitics 2006-2008

The Endgame is Unfolding

Whew, time for some good news

What Must Be Done: When corporatism and Leninism have both failed - part 1

What Must Be Done: When corporatism and Leninism have both failed - part 2

A Bit of Humour

Imperial Hubris and Brzezinski's Second Chance « Writings of J. Todd Ring

Imperial Hubris and Bzezinski's Second Chance

I'm not sure what Bzezinski's intentions are with his recent scathing criticisms of the Washington neocons. Has he had a genuine change of heart? Is he now opposed to imperial warfare? Or is he merely questioning the strategy of Bush and company in pursuing the natural prerogatives and noble objectives of empire?

This is the man who, in 1998, in a Paris interview, said he had no regrets as to having orchestrated the CIA funding, arming and training of Al Queda in Afghanistan, for the purpose of luring the Soviet Union into "their own Vietnam" - a war they could not win, that would cause destabilization of the Soviet regime, and hopefully contribute to its ultimate downfall. "Zbig" was the man who, as National Security Adviser to Carter, dreamed up and implemented the creation of the Mujahadeen. Imperial warfare is his specialty.

He is now getting up there in years, possibly reflecting on his life, and maybe has had a serious change of heart. Maybe this is Zbig's "second chance" - reflecting the title of his most recent book (which is ostensibly about America's second chance). Or maybe he is still the same old coldly calculating imperial strategist, and simply believes that the Bush administration is making bad strategic decisions in the rightful pursuit of continued global dominance. After all, he did write, explicitly in the foreword to his 1994 book, The Grand Chessboard, that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. emerged as the world's "first and only truly global superpower" - and that his intentions in writing this book were to outline precisely what must be done in order to maintain U.S. global dominance. He even said, we will have to "harken back to a more brutal imperial age."

If I were to take a pessimistic view, the following might be said. I'm not sure if this is accurate, not knowing the man personally, but here is one possible interpretation, and a rather skeptical one.

Brzezinski is railing now at the Bush order, not out of some new-found moral fervour, but because he is a died-in-the-wool strategist, and feels Bush is making poor strategic decisions. He wants the empire to flourish – zeig heil! – and knows the neocon gambit may cost the corporate elite the whole game. He’s in for the long haul, and wants to see a win – for the elite that he has so ruthlessly, mercilessly, shrewdly and with Machiavellian flair, supported and aided and abetted for years and decades, with all of his cunning and sophisticated strategic thinking.

What is interesting is not his new-found moral fervour, or ostensible morality, but his awareness and open statements about the turning tide: the world is changing, the game is being lost; the sea of humanity is rising up, and the BRIC alliance as well - though less importantly - threatens the global hegemony of the corporatist powers of the West.

Whatever Bzezinski's intentions are - and I don't follow his words or actions closely enough to know - his recent statements at least make three things clear. One, the Washington neoconservatives are engaging in imperial warfare in a manner that is full of foolish hubris and bespeaks imperial over-reach, according to Brzezinski; and I think we would have to agree. Bzezinski's argument seems to be that if such over-reach and hubris is followed, the American empire may collapse completely. Not a bad thing, if you ask the vast majority of the world's people, but a result that Bush and company certainly did not intend.

Second, a shift in global power is occurring, and the U.S. does not have the hegemony it once had. Brzezinski notes two major challenges to U.S. global hegemony. The first challenge is the rising power of Asia and the South, particularly the BRIC alliance - Brazil, Russia, India, China and others. The U.S. economy, as well as that of the EU, and the entire Western-based corporate empire as a whole, is rapidly being eclipsed by the rising giants of the BRIC alliance.

Thirdly, the second threat to U.S. hegemony, and the one that is more profound, is from that group referred to by the business press as "the other superpower" - the world's citizenry.

Whatever Brzezinski's motives, his warnings to the U.S. government on these three points should be read loud and clear - coming from a top level long-term strategic planner for the U.S. and Western business and political elite, we should take note. The end of the American empire is in sight. The end of empire per se may even be in sight. With the rising superpower of global citizen's movements, we may have an end to imperial warfare in our lifetimes, and perhaps soon. This is, in truth, a cause for hope.

I hope Brzezinski has in fact had a change of heart. But in any case, the real news is not the messenger, but the message. The tide has turned.


Brzezinski now:

YouTube - Brzezinski: Colonial war in post-colonial period does not work.

Zbigniew Brzezinski:US Terrorized by The Mantra War on Terror

YouTube - Zbigniew Brzezinski and Bill Maher 3-23-07


Brzezinski then:

No Regrets: Carter, Brzezinski and the Mujahadeen

Democracy Now! | Ghost Wars: How Reagan Armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan

YouTube - God is on your side! Zbig arms Mujahadin

War on Iran: A Most Dangerous Gambit

Washington’s threatened attack on Iran threatens us all

with the very real possibility of WWIII,

and a likelihood of global economic chaos

The former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom said, “The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.”

That was before Iran. If the U.S. attacks Iran, it could be decisive for the American empire, the American people, the American economy, and for the world’s economy – and decisively bad in all cases. If we avoid WWIII we will be lucky. That is probably the best thing one could say about the apparent impending attack on Iran.

Iran, Russia and China have entered into an economic and military alliance. The latter two are both nuclear powers. The three nations have been conducting joint military training exercises since last August, after the U.S. began military build-up in the region. China and Russia have their eyes on Iranian oil, as does the U.S. and EU. Iran, not surprisingly, wants protection. A U.S. attack on Iran will likely spark a regional conflagration across the Middle East, and may spell global war.

“The new U.S.-Russian relationship, as it is currently evolving, contains a potential for very serious threats to international security. In a major international crisis, conflict between the two major nuclear powers may escalate to extreme levels.”

- Sergei Plekhanov, The Nightmare Scenario

ING, the big German bank, has recently released a report warning its investors that the U.S. may attack Iran in the near future, and that such an attack would lead to cascading effects throughout the global economy. It predicted an attack on Iran would cause oil prices to spike, the dollar to fall, and global economic chaos to result.

A U.S. attack on Iran would of course be unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and criminal. Beyond this, however, such an attack would pose grave risks for humanity and the earth.

The risks entailed in a U.S. attack on Iran are great – in fact, the risks are arguably extreme. This is a gambit of immense danger. Ah the love of power: what madness is sweeter?

Excerpts from the article by strategic analyst Sergei Plekhanov follow.

“This week, the international crisis that started in September with U.S. discovery of stepped-up uranium enrichment activities in Iran is expected to trigger a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. In the past few weeks, international attempts to defuse the crisis failed, as Russia, supported by China and North Korea, increased the readiness of its armed forces and made several threatening moves. In his address to the citizens of Russia, President Valdimir Putin called the situation “grave” and expelled U.S. diplomats from Moscow. President Bush invoked the War Powers Act. A Russian reconnaissance plane collided in midair with a U.S. plane in the vicinity of U.S. ballistic missile defense installations. It is expected that in the next few days, Russia will launch a strategic nuclear strike at American command centers and armed forces. The U.S. will retaliate.

This is the gist of the scenario, called Vigilant Shield ‘07, for this year’s Homeland Defense Exercise, currently being conducted by the U.S. Northern Command, according to Washington Post columnist William Arkin’s Early Warning blog (“Russia Supports North Korea in Nuclear War” and “The Vigilant Shield 07 Exercise Scenario”). War games are a peculiar genre, easy to make fun of, but the logic of this scenario merits serious attention, as it reminds us of an important reality we usually prefer to forget about.

When we think about the danger of nuclear war nowadays, the mind zeros in on North Korea and Iran and stays there, preoccupied with the fact that North Korea has a few nuclear bombs, while Iran may or may not build a few of its own in the next decade. The international community is tying itself in knots trying to respond to the colossal threats to world peace and security that these two countries present.

Now, the reality is that of the world’s estimated 22,000 nuclear weapons, about 21,000 belong to the U.S. and Russia, each of the two possessing nearly equal numbers and keeping about 1,000 of them ready for launching within 30 minutes. The rest are distributed in batches of a few hundred among France, the UK, China and Israel, while the new members of the “nuclear club,” India and Pakistan, possess a few dozens each (Nuclear Issues—CDI).

If we should worry about the existence of nuclear weapons with their unique capacity to put an end to human life on this planet, it is odd that we overlook the thousands and peer at the murky single digits through a magnifying glass and tremble with fear.

What happened to the clarity of mind that defined world thinking about nuclear weapons 20 years ago, when it was obvious that the really dangerous nukes were those in massive numbers that the Americans and the Russians trained on each other and were ready to use on a few minutes’ notice?

“Barring worst-case scenarios, however, the U.S.-Russian asymmetry may actually help the case for arms control and disarmament. First, the pursuit of hegemony, at least in its current neoconservative variant, has turned out to be a prescription for U.S. setbacks in the international arena. By failing so compellingly in its use of force at a time when its power seemed so overwhelming, the U.S. is serving everyone a useful lesson: Alternative, nonmilitary approaches to international security are urgently needed.”

Truthdig - The Nightmare Scenario

Iran attack would cause market chaos - The Business - London's First Global Business Magazine

*** VIDEO: The Dangers of a Nuclear War-impacts of a nuclear attack on Iran

Nuclear Bunker Buster Bombs against Iran: This Way Lies Madness

Zbigniew Brzezinski:US Terrorized by The Mantra War on Terror

Planned Attack on Iran : Bush Will Expand War Before Blair Resigns

The falling dollar, this could turn into a crash | | Guardian Unlimited Business « Dissident

Olbermann, YouTube - Bush speaks before Iran war as he spoke before Iraq war

Bush Faces Opposition on Iran Attack

Kucinich: 'Impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran'

March on the Pentagon, Mar. 17:
Iraq, Iran & Oil


The coward will ask is it safe?...Vanity, is it politically expedient or popular? But conscience will always ask, is it right?

- Mahdi Bray

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

On the 4th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, and as the neoconservatives in Washington and their corporate backers plan an attack on Iran, popular opposition to such wars of empire and aggression mounts. "The other superpower" - the citizens of the world, according to the business press and the UN - is beginning to wake. Hopefully we will not be too late. The age of empires is approaching its twilight hour, but it may not die peacefully. Let us usher it out as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

As to Canadian troops in Afghanistan, about the only thing we are accomplishing is to lend legitimacy to the U.S. imperial war for oil. If we keep this up, Canada can forget about its reputation as a peace-keeping nation. Presently, we are a propaganda machine for U.S. military aggression. We are lending diplomatic cover for wars of empire. Get the troops out now! Bring them home.


"On March 17, 2007, the 4^th anniversary of the start of the criminal invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people from around the country will descend on the Pentagon in a mass demonstration to demand: U.S. Out of Iraq Now! 2007 is the 40^th anniversary of the historic 1967 anti-war march to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. The message of the 1967 march was "From Protest to Resistance," and marked a turning point in the development of a countrywide mass movement.

"The people of the United States want an end to the war in Iraq. The elections in November were a clear repudiation of the Bush administration's war of aggression. The new Congress, however, has no intention of ending the war. Bush and the Pentagon generals are determined to prolong the war. Tens of thousands of more troops will be sent to Iraq. We are building a massive antiwar movement on the national and local level. Only the action of the people will stop the war.

"We are returning to the Pentagon because the Iraq war has resulted in more than 655,000 Iraqi deaths (Lancet), on top of more than 1 million killed by sanctions between 1990-2003. This is genocide.

"We are returning to the Pentagon to demand the immediate closure of Guantánamo and all other torture facilities. The grotesque revelations of torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib were the tip of the iceberg. Punishing a few rank and file soldiers and counting on the mass media to tire of the story, the Pentagon has tried to conceal the reality that it engages in arbitrary detention and torture of those it identifies as “enemies.”

"We are returning to the Pentagon to demand an end to the surveillance and other spy programs conducted against the people of this country by the Pentagon and other agencies.

"We are returning to the Pentagon because it maintains 714 military bases in 130 countries to extend the influence of US transnational corporations, oil giants and banks. The slogan of national security and the war on terror stands exposed as a pretext for a global empire enforced by military might and limitless violence.

"We are returning to the Pentagon to challenge the system that is addicted to war and global domination. The Iraq war is a criminal endeavor based on lies. It was always about conquering the entire Middle East with its vast repositories of oil. While the Iraq war has been an absolute catastrophe for the entire people of Iraq and for tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers, it must be remembered that many U.S. corporations are benefiting. They are the recipients of new Pentagon orders for weapons, supplies and contracts. The Iraq war costs approximately $279 million each day. That breaks down to more than $11 million every hour of every day of the year. The total cost of the Iraq war will be $2 trillion, according to the Iraq Study Group report.

"Unless the people act now, the human and economic costs of the war will only increase. Let's unite and stand together at the Pentagon on March 17."

- Statement from the ANSWER coalition on why we're marching (for full text see links below)

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts."

- Chief long-term strategic planner for the U.S. National Security Council,
George F. Kennan, in a 1948 State Department Brief: the now-declassified NSC 68.


Note: This is not new. Bush is only the latest of war criminals. He is the successor to empire - an empire that is in crisis and crumbling, desperate to shore itself up while it may still be possible.


"The Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a (bipartisan) "Post War" foreign policy framework, which provides the basis for the planning of the contemporary wars and atrocities including the setting up of torture chambers, concentration camps and the extensive use of prohibited weapons directed against civilians.

"From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman Doctrine". Despite significant policy differences, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush have carried out this global military agenda.

"What distinguishes the Bush administration in relation to the historical record of US sponsored crimes and atrocities, is that the concentration camps, targeted assassinations and torture chambers are now openly considered as legitimate forms of intervention, which sustain "the global war on terrorism" and support the spread of Western democracy [sic].

"To reverse the tide of war requires a massive campaign of networking and outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, mosques, schools, universities, municipalities, on the dangers of a US sponsored war which contemplates the use of nuclear weapons. The message should be loud and clear: It is not Iran which is a threat to global security but the United States of America.

"The corporate media also bear a heavy responsibility for the cover-up of US sponsored war crimes. Until recently these war preparations involving the use of nuclear weapons have been scarcely covered by the corporate media. The latter must also be forcefully challenged for their biased coverage of the Middle East war.

"What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media lies and distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US Administration and of those governments which support it, its war agenda as well as its so-called "Homeland Security agenda" which has already defined the contours of a police State."

- Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, Ottawa U.,
founder and director of the Center for Research on Globalization

"Intelligent people realize that American claims to be a moral and democratic force are mere pretense behind which hides a policy of military aggression."
- Paul Craig Roberts, former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal


"[A] plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran [is]... Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in, quote/unquote, ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran...”
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 1, 2007 (emphasis added)

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

~ James Madison

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd American President

"Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism."
- Thomas Jefferson

"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest." - Thomas Jefferson

March on the Pentagon, March 17

Transportation for March 17

March 17 Actions Across Canada

"Why I'm marching on the Pentagon"

1,500+ endorsers of the March on the Pentagon - March 17, 2007

Appetite for Oil Fuels America's Warmongering

Al Gore: U.S. Oil Financed Harper

Criminals Control the Executive Branch

Gangsters for Capitalism

Bush Is About to Attack Iran: Why Can't Americans See it?

The Unthinkable: The US- Israeli Nuclear War on Iran

The Criminalization of US Foreign Policy

Bill Moyers: The Secret Government - PBS Video

The Power of Nightmares: BBC Documentary Shreds the War on Terror Myth

*** Even Conservatives Hate Republicans Now

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

America's nuclear ticking bomb

Evidence of US coercion of IAEA members against Iran revealed

Looking for a Gulf of Tonkin-like Incident

Why is the US press silent on Brzezinski’s warnings of war against Iran?

The Pentagon's "Second 911"

The World Can Halt Bush’s Crimes by Dumping the Dollar

Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home - Howard Zinn

BringThemHomeNow.org

Bring 'em Home

Gold Star Famillies For Peace

Military Families Speak Out

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Veterans For Peace

NDP Petition to the House of Commons - Support our troops. Bring 'em home.

YouTube - Country Joe McDonald - I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die (Woodstock 1969)

YouTube - COUNTRY JOE - Support The Troops

YouTube - Black Sabbath-War Pigs

YouTube - Blair & Bush 'Don't Give a Damn'

YouTube - Bob Dylan - Masters of War

YouTube - The Unversal Soldier

Peace Takes Courage

The Pernicious Price of Petroleum

Peak Oil intro - CBC 2min.

'Living on an illusion' - CNN video on oil depletion

Peak Oil alert - Houston Business Journal:

An Open Letter to Greg Palast on Peak Oil

Will The End of Oil Mean The End of America?

We Were Warned: Tomorrow's Oil Crisis - CNN

The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror

The War for Oil - BBC - Part 1/3

War for Oil - BBC - Part 2/3

War for Oil - BBC - Part 3/3

Video - Robert Newman History of oil - Google Video

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil - order video

Making Sweden an OIL-FREE Society

YouTube - Bob Dylan - Masters Of War - full version