1.That every man, woman, and grown child, able and willing to work, may find employment.
2. That the poor, by industry, prudence, and economy, may at all times support themselves comfortably, without depending on (charity) and, as a corollary from these positions,
3 That their sufferings and distresses chiefly, if not wholly, come from their idleness, their dissipation, and their extravagance.
4.That taxes for the support of the poor, and aid offered them by charitable individuals, or benevolent societies, are pernicious, as, by encouraging the poor to depend on them, they foster their idleness and improvidence, and thus produce, or at least increase, the poverty and distress they are intended to relieve.

Sound familiar? It’s all possibly the stuff of Ayn Rand but surely of all the existing GOP candidates?

The source is not those people.

It is taken from an essay by M. Carey – and was written in 1833.

Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land focused on one and only one cause of poverty and want – low wages below the minimum necessary to provide a sufficiency of plain food and of clothes to protect against the elements.

The pamphlet raged against the poverty and immiseration that this Dickensian disdain for working people caused, the exploitation of human beings for the amassing of wealth for the few. Clearly and distinctly M. Carey notes: LOW RATE OF WAGES IS THE ROOT OF THE MISCHIEF.

Mind you, the pamphlet, while also documenting the failure of “poor laws” here and in England, did not take the logical step of demanding better pay for hours and piece work – it merely advocated opening better jobs for women so they could move up into higher wage work. While the analysis is very clear, the solution avoided tackling the very problem stated.

The beginning of capitalism in America occurred only after the Revolution, particularly after the Constitution provided a vehicle for interstate commerce. Trying to build a national economy that had, since 1620, been regulated by the towns and cities, there also had to be massive legal changes to end the regulation of production standards and prices for all commodities. These laws existed to protect both the self sufficiency of the average colonial person and family and to protect those in need from exploitation and greater want. It took approximately 50 years to move from a “moral economy” to an “instrumental economy” but by the time of M. Carey’s diatribe against the exploitation of working people, especially women, the laws favoring the rich and permitting gross exploitation of working people were well in hand in all the states.

What is extremely worrisome is the retreat in the 21st century to an 1833 mentality. Add in a later belief in Social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer’s justification for post Civil War class warfare, and we can see within the GOP a kind of 19th century appeal to the idea that some are worthy – the rich – and others deserve only what they worthy desire to hand out, no more.

If what the GOP desire is a retreat not just to the days of the Robber Barons but to an even earlier period of utterly unfettered and indifferent class divisions and exploitation, then we have an obligation to make this clear. From the beginning of the Republic there has been a forward march to increase, not decrease, the value of the ordinary person from extending full voting rights to all white males, not just the landed, to assuring rights for women and minorities, from pressing for the full inclusion of all people – and their immesurable talents – in our economy and polity, we strengthened the promises of democracy and what is the root of “American Exceptionalism” -being a nation where everyone matters.

To see not just candidates but entire segments of America want to restore massive inequality is shocking. Seeing calls for closing the wealth gap labeled “class warfare” recalls the dismissive refusal of Scrooge to donate even to charity for those working but still in need.

Is this the best they want for America? If that is unacceptable, then it must be called out – a retreat to a Dickensian world of massive exploitation and demonizing of working people. That’s not a vision I think most people have of our “future”.

Hello, planeteers! Although I haven’t posted here in a while due to an overflow of work, I’ve been lurking from time to time and am glad to see that the quality of commentary here has not declined in the slightest. Keep up the good work!

In my travels through the bowels of academic literature on nationalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth – for an essay that I was writing about the development of nationalism in those centuries – I come across this intriguing excerpt from an essay by George Orwell. I thought that the good people here at the planet might enjoy it:

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Somewhere or other Byron makes use of the French word longeur, and remarks in passing that though in England we happen not to have the word, we have the thing in considerable profusion. In the same way, there is a habit of mind which is now so widespread that it affects our thinking on nearly every subject, but which has not yet been given a name. As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word ‘nationalism’, but it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary sense, if only because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach itself to what is called a nation—that is, a single race or a geographical area. It can attach itself to a church or a class, or it may work in a merely negative sense, against something or other and without the need for any positive object of loyalty.

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.[1]But secondly—and this is much more important—I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

So long as it is applied merely to the more notorious and identifiable nationalist movements in Germany, Japan, and other countries, all this is obvious enough. Confronted with a phenomenon like Nazism, which we can observe from the outside, nearly all of us would say much the same things about it. But here I must repeat what I said above, that I am only using the word ‘nationalism’ for lack of a better. Nationalism, in the extended sense in which I am using the word, includes such movements and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, Antisemitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism. It does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country, still less to one’s own country, and it is not even strictly necessary that the units in which it deals should actually exist. To name a few obvious examples, Jewry, Islam, Christendom, the Proletariat and the White Race are all of them objects of passionate nationalistic feeling: but their existence can be seriously questioned, and there is no definition of any one of them that would be universally accepted.

It is also worth emphasising once again that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the U.S.S.R. without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. When one grasps the implications of this, the nature of what I mean by nationalism becomes a good deal clearer. A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist—that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating—but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also—since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself—unshakeably certain of being in the right.

Now that I have given this lengthy definition, I think it will be admitted that the habit of mind I am talking about is widespread among the English intelligentsia, and more widespread there than among the mass of the people. For those who feel deeply about contemporary politics, certain topics have become so infected by considerations of prestige that a genuinely rational approach to them is almost impossible. Out of the hundreds of examples that one might choose, take this question: Which of the three great allies, the U.S.S.R., Britain and the USA, has contributed most to the defeat of Germany? In theory, it should be possible to give a reasoned and perhaps even a conclusive answer to this question. In practice, however, the necessary calculations cannot be made, because anyone likely to bother his head about such a question would inevitably see it in terms of competitive prestige. He would therefore start by deciding in favour of Russia, Britain or America as the case might be, and only after this would begin searching for arguments that seemed to support his case. And there are whole strings of kindred questions to which you can only get an honest answer from someone who is indifferent to the whole subject involved, and whose opinion on it is probably worthless in any case. Hence, partly, the remarkable failure in our time of political and military prediction. It is curious to reflect that out of al the ‘experts’ of all the schools, there was not a single one who was able to foresee so likely an event as the Russo-German Pact of 1939.[2] And when news of the Pact broke, the most wildly divergent explanations were of it were given, and predictions were made which were falsified almost immediately, being based in nearly every case not on a study of probabilities but on a desire to make the U.S.S.R. seem good or bad, strong or weak. Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.[3] And aesthetic judgements, especially literary judgements, are often corrupted in the same way as political ones. It would be difficult for an Indian Nationalist to enjoy reading Kipling or for a Conservative to see merit in Mayakovsky, and there is always a temptation to claim that any book whose tendency one disagrees with must be a bad book from a literary point of view. People of strongly nationalistic outlook often perform this sleight of hand without being conscious of dishonesty.

In England, if one simply considers the number of people involved, it is probable that the dominant form of nationalism is old-fashioned British jingoism. It is certain that this is still widespread, and much more so than most observers would have believed a dozen years ago. However, in this essay I am concerned chiefly with the reactions of the intelligentsia, among whom jingoism and even patriotism of the old kind are almost dead, though they now seem to be reviving among a minority. Among the intelligentsia, it hardly needs saying that the dominant form of nationalism is Communism—using this word in a very loose sense, to include not merely Communist Party members, but ‘fellow travellers’ and russophiles generally. A Communist, for my purpose here, is one who looks upon the U.S.S.R. as his Fatherland and feels it his duty to justify Russian policy and advance Russian interests at all costs. Obviously such people abound in England today, and their direct and indirect influence is very great. But many other forms of nationalism also flourish, and it is by noticing the points of resemblance between different and even seemingly opposed currents of thought that one can best get the matter into perspective.

Ten or twenty years ago, the form of nationalism most closely corresponding to Communism today was political Catholicism. Its most outstanding exponent—though he was perhaps an extreme case rather than a typical one—was G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton was a writer of considerable talent who whose to suppress both his sensibilities and his intellectual honesty in the cause of Roman Catholic propaganda. During the last twenty years or so of his life, his entire output was in reality an endless repetition of the same thing, under its laboured cleverness as simple and boring as ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’ Every book that he wrote, every scrap of dialogue, had to demonstrate beyond the possibility of mistake the superiority of the Catholic over the Protestant or the pagan. But Chesterton was not content to think of this superiority as merely intellectual or spiritual: it had to be translated into terms of national prestige and military power, which entailed an ignorant idealisation of the Latin countries, especially France. Chesterton had not lived long in France, and his picture of it—as a land of Catholic peasants incessantly singing the Marseillaise over glasses of red wine—had about as much relation to reality as Chu Chin Chow has to everyday life in Baghdad. And with this went not only an enormous overestimation of French military power (both before and after 1914-18 he maintained that France, by itself, was stronger than Germany), but a silly and vulgar glorification of the actual process of war. Chesterton’s battle poems, such as Lepanto or The Ballad of Saint Barbara, make The Charge of the Light Brigade read like a pacifist tract: they are perhaps the most tawdry bits of bombast to be found in our language. The interesting thing is that had the romantic rubbish which he habitually wrote about France and the French army been written by somebody else about Britain and the British army, he would have been the first to jeer. In home politics he was a Little Englander, a true hater of jingoism and imperialism, and according to his lights a true friend of democracy. Yet when he looked outwards into the international field, he could forsake his principles without even noticing he was doing so. Thus, his almost mystical belief in the virtues of democracy did not prevent him from admiring Mussolini. Mussolini had destroyed the representative government and the freedom of the press for which Chesterton had struggled so hard at home, but Mussolini was an Italian and had made Italy strong, and that settled the matter. Nor did Chesterton ever find a word to say about imperialism and the conquest of coloured races when they were practised by Italians or Frenchmen. His hold on reality, his literary taste, and even to some extent his moral sense, were dislocated as soon as his nationalistic loyalties were involved.

Obviously there are considerable resemblances between political Catholicism, as exemplified by Chesterton, and Communism. So there are between either of these and for instance Scottish nationalism, Zionism, Antisemitism or Trotskyism. It would be an oversimplification to say that all forms of nationalism are the same, even in their mental atmosphere, but there are certain rules that hold good in all cases. The following are the principal characteristics of nationalist thought:

Obsession. As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit. It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance. The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organization, fills him with uneasiness which he can relieve only by making some sharp retort. If the chosen unit is an actual country, such as Ireland or India, he will generally claim superiority for it not only in military power and political virtue, but in art, literature, sport, structure of the language, the physical beauty of the inhabitants, and perhaps even in climate, scenery and cooking. He will show great sensitiveness about such things as the correct display of flags, relative size of headlines and the order in which different countries are named.[4] Nomenclature plays a very important part in nationalist thought. Countries which have won their independence or gone through a nationalist revolution usually change their names, and any country or other unit round which strong feelings revolve is likely to have several names, each of them carrying a different implication. The two sides of the Spanish Civil War had between them nine or ten names expressing different degrees of love and hatred. Some of these names (e.g. ‘Patriots’ for Franco-supporters, or ‘Loyalists’ for Government-supporters) were frankly question-begging, and there was no single one of the which the two rival factions could have agreed to use. All nationalists consider it a duty to spread their own language to the detriment of rival languages, and among English-speakers this struggle reappears in subtler forms as a struggle between dialects. Anglophobe-Americans will refuse to use a slang phrase if they know it to be of British origin, and the conflict between Latinizers and Germanizers often has nationalists motives behind it. Scottish nationalists insist on the superiority of Lowland Scots, and socialists whose nationalism takes the form of class hatred tirade against the B.B.C. accent and even the often gives the impression of being tinged by belief in symphatetic magic—a belief which probably comes out in the widespread custom of burning political enemies in effigy, or using pictures of them as targets in shooting galleries.

Instability. The intensity with which they are held does not prevent nationalist loyalties from being transferable. To begin with, as I have pointed out already, they can be and often are fastened up on some foreign country. One quite commonly finds that great national leaders, or the founders of nationalist movements, do not even belong to the country they have glorified. Sometimes they are outright foreigners, or more often they come from peripheral areas where nationality is doubtful. Examples are Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, de Valera, Disraeli, Poincaré, Beaverbrook. The Pan-German movement was in part the creation of an Englishman, Houston Chamberlain. For the past fifty or a hundred years, transferred nationalism has been a common phenomenon among literary intellectuals. With Lafcadio Hearne the transference was to Japan, with Carlyle and many others of his time to Germany, and in our own age it is usually to Russia. But the peculiarly interesting fact is that re-transference is also possible. A country or other unit which has been worshipped for years may suddenly become detestable, and some other object of affection may take its place with almost no interval. In the first version of H. G. Wells’s Outline of History, and others of his writings about that time, one finds the United States praised almost as extravagantly as Russia is praised by Communists today: yet within a few years this uncritical admiration had turned into hostility. The bigoted Communist who changes in a space of weeks, or even days, into an equally bigoted Trotskyist is a common spectacle. In continental Europe Fascist movements were largely recruited from among Communists, and the opposite process may well happen within the next few years. What remains constant in the nationalist is his state of mind: the object of his feelings is changeable, and may be imaginary.

But for an intellectual, transference has an important function which I have already mentioned shortly in connection with Chesterton. It makes it possible for him to be much more nationalistic—more vulgar, more silly, more malignant, more dishonest—that he could ever be on behalf of his native country, or any unit of which he had real knowledge. When one sees the slavish or boastful rubbish that is written about Stalin, the Red Army, etc. by fairly intelligent and sensitive people, one realises that this is only possible because some kind of dislocation has taken place. In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion—that is, the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware—will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are sceptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice: in that case he will have abandoned the form of nationalism that lies nearest to hand without getting any closer to a genuinely internationalist outlook. He still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself. God, the King, the Empire, the Union Jack—all the overthrown idols can reappear under different names, and because they are not recognised for what they are they can be worshipped with a good conscience. Transferred nationalism, like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one’s conduct.

Indifference toReality. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage—torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The Liberal News Chronicle published, as an example of shocking barbarity, photographs of Russians hanged by the Germans, and then a year or two later published with warm approval almost exactly similar photographs of Germans hanged by the Russians.[5] It is the same with historical events. History is thought of largely in nationalist terms, and such things as the Inquisition, the tortures of the Star Chamber, the exploits of the English buccaneers (Sir Francis Drake, for instance, who was given to sinking Spanish prisoners alive), the Reign of Terror, the heroes of the Mutiny blowing hundreds of Indians from the guns, or Cromwell’s soldiers slashing Irishwomen’s faces with razors, become morally neutral or even meritorious when it is felt that they were done in the ‘right’ cause. If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world; and yet in not one single case were these atrocities—in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna—believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind.

Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should—in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918—and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible. Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which it is felt ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied[6]. In 1927 Chiang Kai Shek boiled hundreds of Communists alive, and yet within ten years he had become one of the heroes of the Left. The re-alignment of world politics had brought him into the anti-Fascist camp, and so it was felt that the boiling of the Communists ‘didn’t count’, or perhaps had not happened. The primary aim of propaganda is, of course, to influence contemporary opinion, but those who rewrite history do probably believe with part of their minds that they are actually thrusting facts into the past. When one considers the elaborate forgeries that have been committed in order to show that Trotsky did not play a valuable part in the Russian civil war, it is difficult to feel that the people responsible are merely lying. More probably they feel that their own version was what happened in the sight of God, and that one is justified in rearranging the records accordingly.

Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt about the most enormous events. For example, it is impossible to calculate within millions, perhaps even tens of millions, the number of deaths caused by the present war. The calamities that are constantly being reported—battles, massacres, famines, revolutions—tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. What were the rights and wrongs of the Warsaw rising of August 1944? Is it true about the German gas ovens in Poland? Who was really to blame for the Bengal famine? Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or failing to form an opinion. The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied. Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. All nationalist controversy is at the debating-society level. It is always entirely inconclusive, since each contestant invariably believes himself to have won the victory. Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connection with the physical world.

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Thanks for reading!

America is a Nation with a mission -- and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace -- a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.
~George W. Bush

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
~George W. Bush

Al Qaeda is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK.
~Barack Obama

I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.
~Barack Obama

On August 7, 1990 U.S. military forces touched down in the country of Saudi Arabia to defend against a possible invasion of the country by it’s neighbor Iraq. Iraq, under the leadership of dictator Saddam Hussein, had already captured the country of Kuwait, whom Saudi Arabia and Iraq share an eastern border with, days earlier. The next day Hussein declared Kuwait a province of Iraq and began installing his own government. President George H.W. Bush immediately escalated the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf  . In a later speech to Congress on September 11, President Bush said he was responding to a massive buildup of Iraqi troops on the Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi border. The Pentagon claimed that satellite photos showing the buildup would confirm this. The photos showed nothing but empty desert.

An organization in Kuwait looking to influence American opinion toward an invasion of Iraq began distributing material detailing atrocities being committed by Iraqi military in Kuwait. Much of it was PR stuff and never proven but there were valid complaints. Several executions of civilians and senseless destruction of homes just for the sake of doing it. Abuses of women, sexual and otherwise, and a total disregard for anything not wearing a uniform. But many here were hesitant to become involved militarily in the region.  The major problem for many though, was the oil. Even if diplomatic compromises were reached, even if the safety of Kuwaiti citizens could be assured, Saddam Hussein could still control Kuwaiti’s oil supply. One of the richest in the world. Couldn’t have it. Both American and Saudi government officials knew the consequences if this occurred.

Bush eventually got the authority he needed and on January 17, 1991 the Gulf War began. It ended rather quickly. Iraq was not the mighty military machine it had been made out to be early on. Iraq was backed by few countries, Yemen being the most prominent. Iraq was also backed by Palestine and this led to a mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from Kuwait.  America had assembled one of the most impressive global coalitions since WW 2. Despite some early claims of the overwhelming success of Iraqi SCUD missiles, the “war” lasted about 3 weeks. Allied commanders were admittedly surprised by how easy it was. Iraqi soldiers abandoned Kuwait, many at the first sight of Allied forces. Sometimes the Iraqi forces would hold their ground and put up a prolonged resistance, but most often fled after the first few minutes of an engagement. Iraqi soldiers appeared poorly trained, even among their officer ranks. It also appears that their numbers had been greatly exaggerated both in terms of troops and hardware. Many later questioned whether military intervention was even necessary at all. Many more questioned the need to bomb Iraqi civilian targets. This was not collateral damage. It was an attempt to destroy the basic infrastructure if Iraq. This has never really been fully explained. Severe sanctions and embargoes were then placed on the country, further decimating an already beaten people.

There was a lot of talk about freeing the people of Kuwait and giving them their country back. Kuwait wasn’t a great place for many of the people who lived there. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq all had a history together. Kuwait heavily funded Iraq’s war against Iran and they had several deals with Saudi Arabia and Iraq regarding the oil fields they share. When the Iraq-Iran war was over, Kuwait called in Iraq’s tab with interest. An economic war quickly escalated to a full scale invasion.  Neither of these countries are  a bastion of democracy and  freedom. But, hey, oil. Gotta do what you gotta do.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGD9O0tks_A

With the “war” won, America packed up and left the region. I’m kidding. We built giant military bases and harassed any Arab and Muslim that came within a mile of them. This move was controversial to say the least. Many, many Muslims did not like the idea of U.S. troops stationed on Muslim holy ground. Saudi Arabia is home to the two most important sites in Islam, the cities of Mecca and Medina. The Saudi Royal family was already quite unpopular and many interpreted permanent U.S. presence as a defense of the crown. And we’re not talking about just “extremists”. A majority of Saudis were quite furious with these developments. In 2003, we finally started moving a majority of troops out of Saudi Arabia. But it was far too late for that and many saw it as a slap in the face. The continued anger over “U.S. occupation” in Saudi Arabia became a powerful recruiting tool for terrorist organizations in the region. People in these countries aren’t stupid. They know the West backs any dictator making their life miserable as long as he can make them a fortune in oil profits.

But, before we go on, let’s step back to 1979. In December of that year the Soviet Union deployed combat troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stabilize the country.  Why? Well, funny story. In the decades before all this mess, Afghanistan was a republic. At some points a democratic republic. Some leaders were more conservative than others but progressive policies were often sought by the interior. Afghanistan formed friendly relations with both America and Russia and both countries paid huge bucks to build up Afghanistan. In April of 1978, a military coup gave control of the country to the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, a communist organization. They were obviously not prepared to rule. Though they followed through with many good reforms including more reforms for women, including government participation, and outlawing usury, they were often brutal in their treatment of the “elite class”. Atheism was made state law and religious leaders were dealt with harshly, as well as the “intelligentsia“. The PDPA wanted absolute control of the country. They claimed to be pro poor and pro worker but they were pro PDPA. Russia found them compatible and the governments quickly formed an alliance.

Watching all this was the CIA. And they saw a great opportunity. There was no way America was gonna let Russia buddy up with Afghanistan and work their way toward Arab oil fields. That shit was ours. So, beginning in ’79 we started funding anti-communist forces in Pakistan, the Mujaheddin. Not the best group of guys in the world but they hated commies just like us. So we could work with them. President Carter and the Pentagon formed a plan to pull Russia into the “Afghanistan Trap”. The Mujaheddin may have thought that we were helping them get rid of the PDPA. Actually we had bigger plans. Unbeknownst to Afghanistan, we wanted to lure Russia into a huge costly war in their country. Sure, Afghanistan would be destroyed, set back many decades socially and economically,  but fuck Russia! Oh, and we’re gonna leave the Mujaheddin in charge, whom most Afghanis also hate. Goodbye democracy, goodbye women’s rights, goodbye schools, goodbye roads, goodbye businesses. Fuck Russia!

Stepping into all this mess was  a man named Osama Bin Laden. A name soon to be known worldwide but this is where the story really begins. After leaving college in ’79 Bin Laden went straight to Afghanistan to fight the “invading infidels”. But we’ll come back to that.  Russia most likely never wanted to invade Afghanistan. Why would they?  The governments were friendly, even before communists seized Afghanistan, and Russia had sunk billions into economic and military aid for the country. At the same time revolution was happening in Iran as the Shah was being deposed by Islamic revolutionists. So the CIA was already operating in the area.  Also during this time the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan was kidnapped by Setami Milli militants and subsequently killed during a failed raid by Afghan police and Soviet military. Things were degrading very quickly. America sent a fleet of ships to the Persian Gulf and everyone thought war between America and Iran was imminent. This and American aided peace treaties between Egypt and Israel further fanned the flames of war between America and Russia. Proxy wars of course. No sense destroying the globe all at once when you can do it country by country while making  a profit.

Afghanistan became lost in the mess over Iran. And we kept pissing Russia off. First we stole Iraq from them and then we sold tons of missiles to people they hate. England said, “maybe we shouldn’t sell missiles to these people. They don’t like us either.” And we said, “Shut up England! Do your job!”. When the Mujaheddin began threatening the government in Kabul, the PDPA called on Russia for military support. Russia took the bait and went into Afghanistan to put down the Mujaheddin. President Carter had pledged to support the Mujaheddin and followed through on it. But things really didn’t take a big turn til Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981. Russia was spending itself out of existence and Reagan knew it full well. The nuclear arms race with America had gutted their country. We knew Russia couldn’t keep up with us so we just kept making weapons til they couldn’t do it anymore.  A protracted war in Afghanistan would not make things any easier.

Congressman Tom Hanks… I mean, Charlie Wilson, was instrumental in upping financial support for insurgents in Afghanistan.

   ”The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people’s decision to fight … but we’ll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones.” ~Charlie Wilson(1984)

This, of course, was not true. We trained them in Pakistan, told them who to shoot, and sent them to Afghanistan. And look, it may seem like it, but I’m not trying to defend Russia here. They were assholes. I  just wanna clear up the reasons why all this happened.  Anyways, Charlie got his CIA funding and the Mujahedin’s firepower increased significantly. Saudi Arabia and England were also big contributors to the war fund. After the “fall” of Iran the U.S. put a renewed interest into driving Russia out of Afghanistan.  A lot of talk about freedom and liberating the people. Russia had to relent. In February of 1989 Russia finally deserted Afghanistan. They had lost thousands of troops and vehicles, including tanks and super expensive Hind helicopters. At the end of the war, Russia had the 2nd largest economy on Earth. The failed invasion resulted in major power shifts in he government and the Soviet GDP fell by more than half. Russia eventually went “bankrupt”.

After the war America had an opportunity to  rebuild Afghanistan, shepherd them through government transitions, and  forge a lasting friendship with the people they wanted to bring “freedom” to. Instead we sold the country to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who raped the country for every resource they could get. Pakistan formed alliances with regional warlords and backed the Taliban’s eventual domination of the state. So, good times. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are old friends. They’re military personnel and governments work very closely together. Most global intelligence agencies are pretty sure that Saudi Arabia is funding Pakistan’s nuclear program in hopes of buying nukes from them in the future.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, no so much. The a fore mentioned Iranian Revolution greatly strained ties between the two countries. Ties that were not very strong to begin with. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are led by duplicitous, authoritarian governments who fund proxy wars and global terrorist networks. So we had a lot in common with them. After the revolution we, of course, backed Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was an Islamic theocracy just like Iran but Saudi Arabia favored the Wahhabi school of Islam and Iran did not look kindly on it. Wahhabism got a lot of press in this country following the attacks of 9/11. Since Osama Bin Laden followed Wahhabism, it must be evil. Very little mention of the fact it’s practically the Saudi state religion and he had little choice in the manner. What attracted many young Muslims to Wahhabi teachings was it’s strict adherence to the “old ways” and it’s seeming disdain for authority. Not only did Wahhabists condemn Islamic “spiritual leaders” they criticized priests and rabbis and leaders of other faiths. Al-lah has the only authority and no one on Earth has the means to represent Him or speak with His authority. Many Wahhabi sects felt that no school, even their own, should be considered as an “authority” on scholarly subjects. Just a guide. But rigid ideologies often lead to extremism. It’s the case in almost all religious sects.

Bin Laden was born into a wealthy Saudi family with close ties to the Royal Family. He was a typical  trust fund baby for most of his life. He lived in a strict Wahibbist household but he went to very prestigious schools that boasted the best in “modern”(Westernized) curriculum. He had many different interests during his time in school but most people agree that the majority of his studies were in religion. He was a kind of practicing Wahabbist but he studied many facets of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. During his college years he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and attended many meetings. It was during this time that he became swept up in the supposed jihad in Afghanistan. After leaving school in 1979 he went straight to the front lines against the Soviets. It’s still a point of contention as to whether Bin Laden received the same CIA training most all Mujaheddin did or if he fell straight into he conflict. Either way he quickly became a commanding presence. During his time he met and befriended a man named Hamid Gul. Gul was a Pakistani general working closely with the CIA to train Mujaheddin.

Gul was training foot soldiers for the movement led by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Azzam was the spiritual and vocal leader of the Afghani resistance. Bin Laden quickly found a kindred spirit in Azzam and became his prized pupil. Together they set up the Maktab al-Khidamat, or Afghan Intelligence Agency in 1984. Bin Laden was an attractive recruit since he held a vast inherited family fortune. Records say Bin Laden inherited between 25 and 30 million dollars. If you count various holdings and undocumented resources, the number was probably closer to 50 million over all. Quite a chunk of change to bring into a jihad. Most of al-Khidamat’s revenue came from Bin Laden’ s deep pockets. Even though the CIA was training and funding a large number of militants, Azzam wanted “true believers” in his army, not just paid mercs so they began funding and training troops of their own. The groups prospered quickly as money and manpower began pouring in from all over Afghanistan. As the war in Afghanistan entered its final years, discussions began about how al-Khidamat would move forward.

By 1988 Bin Laden had already formed  Al Qaeda  after leaving al-Khidamat. He and Azzam were still friendly but operational conflicts had led Bin Laden to form his own group. Azzam wanted to integrate Arab fighters into the resistance and Bin Laden was in full “holy war” mode and wanted Muslim soldiers only. In 1989 Azzam was assassinated by unknown forces and Bin Laden absorbed the Muslim members of al-Khidamat into Al Qaeda. After the war Bin Laden and his generals returned to Saudi Arabia. To many in the country he was  a conquering hero who had driven out the infidels. American involvement was downplayed and Bin Laden insisted it was Muslim soldiers who had beaten Russia with the strength of Al-Lah.  Bullshit of course, but good bullshit.

After Pakistan took over Afghanistan, America became worried about Pakistan’s nuclear program. Meetings with Saudi Arabia went nowhere so major sanctions were forced on Pakistan further infuriating many in both countries. Bin Laden was gaining much favor with the Saudi royals and was often consulted on military matters. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, bin Laden warned the Royal Family not to enlist Western help. The Qur’an never specifically forbids aid from foreigners but it does condemn non-Muslims spilling the blood of any Muslim on holy land, and U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia would violate several tenets regarding foreign occupation of Muslim Holy Land. Bin Laden saw almost everything in religious terms. He didn’t see Christianity as  a problem so much as those claiming to practice it. Islamic leaders throughout history have had great respect for different religions but a greater allegiance to their own. Bin Laden felt  the West was going to bastardize Islam and Islamic Holy Ground as they had done their own religion.

Worse, he felt that American occupation on Muslim Holy Land would curse Muslims for generations to come. Though he put much blame on the Saudi Royal Family, Bin Laden saw America as the aggressors. Far from just dropping in to help, Bin Laden saw signs of a prolonged American occupation of Saudi Arabia. Men who fought with Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but later put down their arms, all commented in one way or another on Bin Laden’s mental state coming out of Afghanistan. His zealotry had filled him with a resolve bordering on insanity. Everywhere he looked he saw enemies of Islam and appointed himself its champion. Bin Laden already had  a natural charisma and his “heroic” actions in Afghanistan had won him many allies in the Middle East. The fact he was loaded didn’t hurt matter s either. Al Qaeda translates into “The Base” and this is what Bin Laden was forming. A base to launch operations against major targets in Europe and North America. Bin Laden envisioned an organization with centralized leadership but decentralized execution.

Overall direction for Al Qaeda would come from Bin Laden and his leadership team but operational control would mostly fall to the individual cells around the world. They would receive a general idea of what was to be done and it was up to them to execute it in whatever way they could. Which is exactly how the 9/11 attacks played out but we will get to that later. The moment American troops touched down in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden began his crusade against the West. And it did begin immediately. In November of 1990,  3 months after U.S. troops landed in Afghanistan, New Jersey police raided the home of  suspected Al Qaeda member, El Sayyid Nosair. They found evidence of terrorist plots against New York city involving the destruction of skyscrapers. Apparently he had also been fed military info from a plant at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.   Nosair had been arrested for the murder of Meir Kahane, leader of the Jewish Defense League in New York, 3 days earlier. His trial was described as “bizarre”.

Nosair apparently ignored the court and spent most of the proceedings looking through sketches he had made of Princess Di. I shit you not. The Jersey police turned over a mountain of evidence to the courts detailing Nosair’s involvement in Al Qaeda. Nosair’s defense argued that this was all part of a conspiracy against his client and that Kahane had probably been killed by a disillusioned follower.   The jury, after a short deliberation,  returned with a split decision. The judge in the case was shocked. He reprimanded the jury for their stupid decision and sentenced Nosair to 7- 22 years in prison based on incontrovertible proof. The max he could get away with from the bench. Nosair went to prison and his defense team immediately began appealing the decision. I bring all this up to get to Nosair’s “friend” on the outside, the “blind sheik”,  Omar Abdel-Rahman. Rahman was an al-Qaeda confidant in America. Not exactly a member but a partner in affairs who had been carrying out his own war against the West. Along with Nosair, Rahman had gathered a small but loyal group to carry out major operations in America. The FBI was pretty aware of Rahman’s activities but didn’t know exactly where and how he would strike. Part of the difficulty was the way Rahman’s agents so easily disappeared into the American population making it extremely difficult to track them on a day to day basis.

Meanwhile, overseas, Bin Laden was planting Al-Qaeda cells in Iraq in hopes of either finally forming a business relationship with the government or overthrowing it and installing  a friendlier administration. Very CIA. Contrary to popular belief, Bin Laden was not a huge fan of Saddam Hussein. He viewed Hussein as  a puppet of the West who they would toss aside when the dying began. He was right but, again, we’ll get to that later. Bin Laden was not a fan of the sanctions leveled against Iraq after the Gulf War and that was his motivation for seeking an inroad to the country. Whether Hussein joined him or not seemed to be irrelevant. Bin Laden was more worried about the people and how he could win more recruits from them. He did get several cells up and running in the country  but no formal talks were ever documented between Iraqi and Al Qaeda leadership that even came close to some kind of “partnership”. That doesn’t mean back channel communications weren’t used, it just never really led to anything. It’s a good bet Hussein was paranoid of anyone “setting up shop” inside his borders. Like Sauron, he shares power with no one.

In 1992, Al-Qaeda conducted it’s first documented operation led by Bin Laden. In December of that year they blew up a hotel in Aden, Yemen believing it housed American troops on the way to Somalia. It did not. The blast only killed bystanders. Al Qaeda later released a justification for killing innocents stating that any innocent who dies near the enemy will have their reward in Heaven. Forgetting that no enemies were in that hotel. This was their first attack and the first time Muslim leaders began to question whether it was a good idea to support them or not. Killing their own people was never part of the bargain. The Yemen government released a soft condemnation of the bombing but many in the government supported Bin Laden and his associates, most likely providing the intel and support to bomb the hotel. Yemen has been in an almost constant state of revolution since leaving the Ottoman Empire in 1918. North and south Yemen finally united in 1990 but tensions remained high and many terrorist groups found warm welcomes in the homes of Yemeni government officials. In particular Bin Laden.

Back to the states. After the ’92 bombing in Yemen the United States put Al Qaeda on its radar. President Bill Clinton came in with a strategy to pursue Al Qaeda operatives in America and trace them back to the operational base overseas. A similar strategy was already in place but Clinton upped the funds and manpower considerably after many tense debates with Congress, who still wanted money for their individual pet projects.  To many people in Washington, terrorism was the rest of the world’s problem. Over here in America we were supposedly protected from those things so spending all kinds of money on counter terrorism seemed a waste to most. Most of the counter terrorism Clinton’s team produced were voted down. And sometimes not on party lines.  Many in the Congress wanted nothing to do with it. We would spend  decades overcoming this short sightedness. In 1993 America would receive its “warning shot”. Former “students” of Omar Abdel-Rahman planted a gigantic amount of explosives in the basement garage of the World Trade Center in New York and detonated it.  Over a thousand pounds of explosive material rocked the North Tower.  The plan was to knock over the North tower into the South Tower and bring both crashing down. 6 people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in the blast but the tower remained. Barely. They almost pulled it off. Had the explosives been closer to the central supports, the tower very likely could have toppled over.

So you would assume this would renew Congress’ urgency to address international terrorism.  It really didn’t. Democrats used it as an excuse to fund dozens of projects that had little or nothing to do with national security and Republicans, of course, blamed Clinton for all of it and further demonized his attempts at counter terrorism funding. Clinton had been President for a month, but he immediately set to work to install the counter terrorism measures I mentioned in the last paragraph.  During this time Bin Laden was forming the mission statement Al Qaeda would rally around. First and foremost was his plan to draw western powers, particularly the United States, into long, bloody conflicts in the Middle East. He had stationed himself in Sudan  and ingratiated himself to the people by heavily investing his own money into infrastructure and local business. He also became involved with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, . The EIJ was committed to overthrowing Egyptian President Hasni Mubarak  and installing an Islamic government. Bin Laden’s dealings in Sudan forced King Faud’s hand. Bin Laden was still trashing the Saudi royals publicly and they were tired of hearing about it. In 1994 they put immense pressure on Bin Laden’s family to cut off his sizable stipend and disown him.

By 1995 the EIJ was an arm of Al Qaeda under control of Bin Laden and his leadership council. That year they attempted to assassinate Mubarak and failed quite spectacularly. This was the last straw for many in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden’s visa was revoked and his family completely cut him off.  Bin Laden’s operational mode had to change. He still wanted to fund smaller attacks around the globe but, now on somewhat of a budget, he wanted to land an attack that would put his bigger plans into motion. This is when the ideas that would eventually lead to 9/11 began. In ’96 he was forced back to Afghanistan by constant pressure from KSA(Saudi Arabia), Egypt, and America on Sudan. At this time he met and formed a partnership with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the spiritual and operational leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was also funding cells operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some reports date this activity as far back as 1992. There was  a committed Muslim population in Bosnia and foreign fighters from all over Asia and Europe poured into the country to help combat Serb and Croat forces. When the war finally ended in 1995 Bin Laden still kept informants and operators in country in hopes of fueling a larger conflict that would consume much of Europe. When the Kosovo War of 1999 threatened to relaunch the entire conflict, Bin Laden again moved to back sides he felt would lead to larger conflicts.

But most of his time was spent planning his opus. President Clinton’s counter terrorism team, headed by Richard Clark, were hot on Bin Laden’s heels. Most people believed Bin Laden was moving around in the mountains on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani government was somewhat committed to capturing Bin Laden but a military coup in 1999 would put the kibosh on a whole lot of plans. When General Pervez Musharraf,   was installed as “president” after a brief, relatively bloodless coup, dealings with Pakistan changed immediately. Efforts to “box in” Bin laden on the border were met with resistance by Pakistani officials concerned with political instability in their own country. Al Qaeda had just enough breathing room to plan and stage their biggest attack yet.  Bin Laden was already a wanted man. Several countries had already issued warrants for his arrest. The 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole moved him onto the top 5 on the FBI’s most wanted list. His next move would make him the most wanted man in the world. An attack so heinous and vile that even old supporters would question his sanity. And the worst part is, we were all warned multiple times before it happened and the government did nothing about it.

The 2000 American presidential race was a historic event and one that would become infamous in this country. Clinton’s extra marital dealings had tarnished the last half of his presidency giving the new Democratic hopeful, Al Gore, an unwelcome  handicap.  Gore was facing Texas moron and governor George W. Bush. Son of slimy CIA chief George H.W. Bush of the Nazi dealing, union busting, war profiteering Bush family. Bush got a legacy bid. After crushing his best competition, John McCain, with an underhanded poll question involving mixed race children(A Karl Rove special) he cakewalked to he Republican nomination. He ran on a platform of “restoring integrity to the White House”. I don’t need to tell you how laughable that is. Bush had run three companies into the ground, escaping each one with stocks in hand just before collapse. What a coincidence.   He then ran one of the dirtiest campaigns ever to win the governorship of Texas where he oversaw the largest decline into debt of any state in American history. So obviously this was  a great resume to become president.  But Americans were fat and happy. That was the end of the millennium. Our biggest collective concern was whether or not the President got a B.J. in the Oval Office.

In 1999, in Afghanistan, Bin Laden was reaquainted with an old “war buddy”, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Both had fought together in the Afghan war but never formed a particularly close relationship. This would change after the two were reintroduced through  a mutual friend. Mohammed took quickly to Bin Laden’s ideas about attacking the United States in a spectacular way. Contrary to what anyone in the Bush administration may have said, ideas about hijacking commercial airliners and using them as weapons was nothing new.  Even the idea to attack the Trade Towers was inspired by Israel’s attacks on similar structures in Lebanon during the 1982 war. In 1998 a man in Turkey attempted to desecrate  the tomb of   a former Turkish president by crashing his plane into it. A document detailing, and explicitly warning against, plans to crash hijacked planes into targets in America was largely ignored by the Bush administration, who later denied it even existed.

George W. Bush’s  controversial “victory” in the 2000 presidential election dominated most news cycles in the first year of his presidency. Richard Clarke, one of few holdovers from the previous White House, was trying urgently to get someone in the Bush White House to hear him out. His team had been tracking Al-Qaeda’s movements for years and were pretty confident they would attempt an attack in America very soon. In his book, Against All Enemies,  Clarke details a meeting in January 2001 with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He attempts to brief Rice on Al-Qaeda and the major threat he felt they posed to national security. He felt the capture or death of Osama Bin Laden should be one of their top priorities going forward.  Not only was Rice unmoved by the briefing, Clarke sensed she had never even heard of Al-Qaeda. Clarke’s anti-terrorism unit was downgraded, pushed to the “basement”. It was a sign that the Bush White House felt terrorism was not much of a priority. Clarke was neutered. Instead of sending briefings directly to the president, they now had to go through several levels of scrutiny by SoS Rice and her staff. Very few if any actually reached Bush’s desk. Again, in April 2001, Clarke strongly suggested that the United States put its focus squarely on Bin Laden. He recommended aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, a proxy military branch of the Afghan government. The NA were already deeply vested in driving out the Taliban, along with Bin Laden, and ending Pakistan’s influence through them.

Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, the “architect of the Iraq Invasion”, stated “”Well, I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden.”. Clarke’s team tried to explain that this one very rich man’s organization, Al Qaeda, was planning and executing multiple attacks around the globe. Clarke states that Wolfowitz didn’t buy that this one man was behind all these attacks. But Wolfy has always had his heart set on another man. Saddam Hussein, Iraq, and all that sweet, sweet fucking oil. (Not oil for fucking, just using it as an expletive there) We’ll get to that soon enough. Clarke and others in the intelligence community would spend the next few months desperately trying to get anything they said taken seriously.  In July the damning “Phoenix Memo” was delivered to FBI offices and virtually ignored. Special Agent Kenneth Williams, who authored the memo, requested an immediate inquiry into flight schools around the country for possible terrorist links. He noted that his own office in Arizona had seen an unusual rise in flight school attendance from people of “investigative interest”. His unit leader at FBI headquarters, David Frasca, reportedly barely gave the memo a look. He was later promoted by the Bush Administration after the attacks of 9/11. The lack of attention placed on the “Phoenix Memo” is considered by many to be a key moment in the possible prevention of the 9/11 attacks and an absolute failure of this country’s intelligence agencies.

After the attacks occurred a light was shined on the juvenile infighting that goes on between our intelligence agencies. How the FBI and CIA turn almost everything into a “biggest dick” contest. And how neither was ever very helpful or concerned with the thoughts of local officials. Evidence continued to point toward a very serious attack on America by Al Qaeda. In August of 2011 a daily briefing came across the President Bush’s desk(his desk in Crawford, Texas) entitled, Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. I think the title says it all. It was not discussed very much after that until spring 2002 when it was leaked to the media. Bush spent most of his time after that on vacation.  I’m sorry, “work vacations”.  He spent a lot of time vacationing during his 8 years. Not too much reading, but a whole lot of golfing. But one story in particular would become almost synonymous with is presidency. Not a great political thriller or historical text. A children’s book entitled ‘The Pet Goat’.

Bush was reading the book to a group of children at a Florida elementary school on September 11, 2001  when he received news that would shape the country’s future for the next decade and beyond. And he sat there for 7 minutes. Then started reading to the kids again. O.K., I get that we don’t want to panic the kids but the excuse given by the Bush team was lame. The country was seriously, ACTUALLY under attack, Pearl Harbor style, and you’re worried what leaving a room abruptly would do to your image? Seriously! This is what one of them said:

   Bush wondered whether he should excuse himself and retreat to the holding room, where he might be able to find out what the hell was going on. But what kind of message would that send—the president abruptly getting up and walking out on a bunch of inner-city second-graders at their moment in the national limelight?

(Quote provided by Wikipedia)

PEOPLE ARE DYING!!! You’re worried about ruining their 30 second piece on the local news???!!!! Anyways, the attack that many had dreaded for years was upon us. And we all know the details. They have been poured over so many times. A brutal day. It’s the aftermath of these attacks that deserves the same if not more scrutiny than the events that led up to it. How a group of power hungry men used  a national tragedy to fuel their own personal agendas and fill their private coffers.

This is really where the story begins and we will get into it in great detail in part 2. Until then I am bringing this section to a close. In Part 2 we will list in gory detail the atrocities committed by the Bush administration, the dismantling of our liberties, most of the world turning against us(England is still our bitch),   and much more back story on all the foreign players involved and how it all came to a head.

Walking History

Robert Gates has served 9 different Presidents over the last 45 years.  Join us as we look back on that service and look forward on the challenges that face our nation.

Dr. Gates, thanks so much for joining me this evening.  I really appreciate your time.

Gates:  No problem happy to do it.  I live in Seattle area now, so this is really convenient for me.

Terrific.  Before we begin, lets cover some housekeeping?  First of all you and I are not really having dinner.  Second, this paraphrased conversation actually occurred during a keynote speech you gave at a conference recently to about 200 people.   I was at that conference and have turned the questions you were asked and the answers you gave into this format for the purposes of this article.  Did I cover everything?

Gates:  I believe so.  Is this legal?

We’ll find out won’t we?

First of all, you seem to have a very high degree of name recognition and approval among a large part of the electorate.  Would you consider running for office?

Gates:  Two words: Instant. Divorce.  There are a couple of reasons I relocated back to the Pacific Northwest.  First my wife is from this area and we really love it.  Second, it is as far away from DC as I can get without actually leaving the country.

That seems pretty definitive.  You’ve worked for 9 different Presidents over the last 45 years.  The stories you must have…

Gates: Oh for sure, some of them are pretty funny too.  I remember one time at the Vatican, I was there with President Nixon, SState Kissinger and a contingent of other delegates to meet with the Pope.  The Secretary of War at the time was Melvin Laird.  He was a bit of a loose cannon, so once we were in Italy Nixon instructed that he not be notified of the time and location of the meeting with the Pope.   Well the next day rolls around and who should come walking down the hall with a big cigar puffing?  Laird.  Kissenger begs him to at least put his cigar out before going into the audience with the Pope.   Laird complies, and sticks it in his pocket.  During the official visit Kissinger looks over and sees Laird patting himself on the chest, a thin tendril of smoke coming out of his pocket.  Moments later, Laird is frantically patting at his suit, smoke now billowing out.  Some of the rest of the audience, confused and sitting further away think its applause and start clapping.  Not only did our Sec Defense try to immolate himself, but the rest of the delegation was applauding him for it.

That’s pretty funny.  Any other good Kissinger stories?

Gates: Sure, Nixon met with Golda Meir in 1969  in the White House, she was accompanied by her Cambridge educated, very westernized foreign minister.  Nixon cracked: “Ms Meir isn’t it interesting that we both have jews as the heads of our state depts?”  Meir shot back: “Yes, but mine speaks English”.

Boy there aren’t enough good Golda Meir jokes around.  That was excellent.   Any other good ones pop into mind?

Gates:  I remember LBJ asking Bill Moyers to do the blessing at a dinner.  Moyers started and LBJ barked: “Bill I can’t hear you.  Speak up!”  Moyers responded: “Mr. President, I wasn’t speaking to you”.

Tell me about how you view the world today.  Where are the top risks in the world right now?

Gates:  In order, Iran, South Korea, and Pakistan

South Korea?

Gates: Yes, in the past provocation by the North was ignored by the South, they were viewed as the deranged cousin best ignored.  Now a sea change has taken place in the military and civilian leadership of that country.  If N. Korea tries some of the same provocations they’ve tried in the past, I fear S. Korea will retalitate.

Wow, I had no idea.  On that note, what about China?

Gates:  China is complicated.  One of the challenges they have is that the civilian leaders of the country keep control only by ensuring constant growth of the economy.  That has already slowed, and the only tool they really have left is nationalism.  The other challenge is that the People’s Liberation Army and the civilian govt. don’t really communicate much or see eye to eye on certain subjects.  I remember that one of my main goals was to keep both of our countries military leadership in communication with one another.  On one trip to support this effort I flew into Beijing and the military brass decided that day to unveil their new stealth fighter and put it on display for our arrival.   I was mad about that, and confronted Hu Jintao about that at our meeting.  He looked at me puzzled and then started speaking very rapidly to one of his aides.  He had no idea this had happened.  This is one example among many we experienced in our relationship with the Chinese.

Is conflict inevitable with the Chinese as they grow in influence and we pull back?

Gates: Not at all.  China does not want to be our enemy, nor should we want them to be.  However, if we treat them like one, they will respond in kind.

You did mention Iran as your top concern…

Gates:  Yes, Iran is a real puzzle.  I do believe that Iran possessing a nuclear weapon in the already destabilized Middle East would be a disaster.  They would not be subject to the NNPT, and other countries in the Middle East would quickly follow.  Isreal’s response is an unknown to me.

What do you mean by that?

Gates: My impression of the Isrealis is that they have always been much more tactical than strategic in how they handle crises in foreign affairs.  They are more likely to react, than to examine the issue from a long-term perspective.  I have no idea how they would react to Iran possessing a nuclear weapon.  I don’t think the Isrealis know how they would react.

Is bombing Iran an option?

Gates:  I certainly hope not.  Iran has sequestered their nuclear program in the middle of urban areas and deep underground in many many different locations.  Even the most precise bombing campaign would never take it all out.  At that point, the general population would forget all about their differences with the mullahs and would be unified against the rest of the world.

So….what are our other options?

Gates: There aren’t any good ones.

What about Russia, how important have they been to dealing with Iran?

Gates:  They have been very good partners lately.  Back in the 80′s and 90′s they never really seemed to understand how big a problem Iran could be for them.  They do now.  Russia has been very helpful in the UN lately and recently cancelled, with a significant financial penalty, a big shipment of weaponry for Iran.

What do you think of Putin?

Gates:  He and I have known each other for some time.  I was at a conference in Europe several years ago, and he was giving a speech about how the US was the cause of all the world’s problems etc etc etc.  After the speech I spoke to him briefly: “You know you and I are old cold-warriors going way back.  The difference now?  I went to re-education camp, and you never did”.  His recent announcement that he was going to run for another series of terms was disappointing but not surprising.  I felt that we could really work with Medveded, and I was hopeful that he’d stay on, but that obviously is not going to happen.

Let’s change gears.  What are some of the biggest differences between working for Presidents Bush and Obama?

Gates:  Well first of all let me say that each President I have worked for has been radically different.  Each has their own strengths and characteristics.  As far as the difference between the Bush and Obama administrations?  Honestly for me, it wasn’t all that different.  There is a tremendous amount of continuity in the Defense Dept. Things happen a certain way whoever the President is, and that is the case here.  As far as the men themselves are concerned, Bush was much more instinctual, while Obama is a lot more analytical.  He really likes to examine every problem from the top, bottom, left, and right before making a decision.  That’s the biggest difference in my opinion.

What were you doing on 9-11?

Gates: I was on a plane.  I was not in government at the time, and was flying to Chicago.  The captain came on the telecom and told us that the WTC had been attacked and that we were being told to land immediately.   We landed in Kansas City and I watched the events unfold on tv from a Kansas City hotel room.  I was there for 3 days.   After, I talked to my wife about feeling the need to serve a bit more, the events on 9-11 really compelled me to do so.  So I took the job of President of Texas A&M University.

How about domestically, any comments on our problems at home?

Gates: First of all, our problems are not going to be easy to solve.  The American people have consistently said that they want a government that they are not willing to pay for, and we have politicians that are only too willing to accomodate those wishes. What I can tell you is that anyone that says we can overcome these difficult challenges without revenues, cuts, and investments is simply not credible.

It is my firm belief that we won the Cold War because we had cohesive long-term vision of how to deal with and defeat the Soviet Union, regardless of who the President was.  Ultimately that is what won the day.  We face problems domestically that are equal in scale if not larger than the challenge of the Cold War.  We need a long-term, multi-administration, multi-Congress plan, approach and execution to solve them.  That is why I am so pessimistic about them being solved.

That’s encouraging.  Last question: How do the deals get done between actors internationally?  

Gates:  Two things really drive international diplomacy.  First is interests, that one is self-evident.  The other is personal relationships.  You would be very surprised to know how much gets done because of how you get along with someone.  I’ve known some of the actors on the international stage for 30-40 years.   That’s extremely important when it comes to getting things accomplished.

Do you have a recent example?

Gates:  Sure, during the Tahrir Square demonstrations I was  on the phone every other day with Defense Minister Tantawi, whom I’ve known for 30 years, begging him not to send tanks into Tahrir Square.  I’d like to think that had something to do with the relatively peaceful end to a very charged situation.   If there is anything I worry about now that I’ve retired, it is the loss of these personal relationships to the administration and the country.

Thank you Dr. Gates for your time, it was fascinating spending it with you.

Image via Wikipedia

The Italian word for “secret” is segreto. Remember that.

About 38 years ago, when Watergate was making a splash across the news media, one Bob Woodward was directed to California, by one of the plea-bargaining culprits and told to speak with an ex-JAG lawyer named Donald Segretti.

Segretti was a college chum of Dwight Chapin and something of an accomplished practical joker. Chapin worked in the Nixon White House. Segretti was recruited, based on his funny-haha reputation for trick-playing as the official Dirty Trickster for he Committee to Re-Elect the President, the aptly nicknamed “CREEP.”

Segretti, using CREEP funds and other things, accomplished a great deal during his tenure as the Head Evil Jester at the court of King Dick. The object of the exercise was to provide the Republican party with the weakest possible Democratic contender for 1972. Segretti’s merry men, amongst whom there numbered a couple of college kids named Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, managed to bring Edmund Muskie to tears in defence of a slander perpetrated against his wife, and they also managed to start a whisper campaign that Scoop Jackson of Washington had fathered an illegitimate child with a teenage girl.

But that’s not all they did. Segretti told Woodward that various young Republican operatives went “undercover” and infiltrated Leftwing student protest groups and actually incited and provoked violence. The object was to present these groups in an even more pejorative light than ordinary viewers perceived them to be. They were of the Left, a young Left which was coming of age and becoming involved politically, and, therefore, they would be perceived to be part and parcel of, if not associated with, the Democratic Party.

Such species of dirty tricks, Segretti called “ratfucking,” and especially that term has come to mean any person of one political persuasion (usually from the Right) who infiltrates, in order to sabotage, another political party (usually the Left) in order to undermine.

Arianna Huffington, I would say, has ratfucking down to an art.

Fast forward to October 2011. Last weekend, when anti-war demonstrators forced their way into the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, one of the assistant editors ofThe American Spectator was found in their midst. Patrick Howley was there deliberately and for a purpose, as he explained, himself in an article in his journal:-

[A]s far as anyone knew I was part of this cause—a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator —and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story. Under a cloud of pepper spray I forced myself into the doors and sprinted blindly across the floor of the Air and Space Museum…

Of course, the article was later removed from The American Spectator website. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? I mean, a self-respecting ratfucker can’t go around outing himself, can he? That defeats the purpose of ratfucking.

Now this past weekend saw some spectacular riots in Rome, allegedly stemming from OWS’s global protests. Cars were burned and private businesses demolished by sledghammer-wielding, petrol-bomb-throwing, masked youths. But as The Timesreports, the police didn’t break their backs, at first, trying to stem this. The underlying suspicion is that, in addition to the usual anarchist suspects, ranks of the violent were enhanced by paid Rightwing thugs, doing what they do best in the service of Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister and criminal, who’d just squeaked by a no-confidence vote.

Result? Everybody’s talking about the violence (and blaming the Left), and no one’s whingeing that Berlusconi is still in power. After all, Berlusconi would smile and shrug, if the Italians didn’t have him in power, look what would run rampant from the Left.

Ratfuckery, meet scare tactics.

Recently, this person was captured on film and in photo, slithering around the OWS crowd in New York City:-

In case you don’t recognise him, this is James O’Keefe – Mr Acorn-Pimp-Bug-Mary-Landrieu’s-Office-Breitbart-Boy, himself. Ne’mind the fact that he seems to have violated his probation in attending the demonstration. One thing for certain: where O’Keefe is, you can be sure he’s there at the bidding of Andrew Breitbart, and he’s there at this demonstration, really, for one reason only: ratfuckery.

Make no mistake: yes, there is an anarchist element at work within the OWS organisation. It’s they who are pushing the “voting-isn’t-worth-it-we-can-take-control-by-other-means” meme; but they are being aided and abetted, perversely, by ratfuckers, paid for and financed by various GOP-supporting conservative organisations – probably even the Koch brothers. And you can be sure that the current Crown Prince of Ratfuckers was there checking out how his ruse was going.

Please tell me this: How is it that, in forty years, the Left has learned nothing?

And please note … “Segretti” is the Italian word for “little secrets.” No shit.