by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Globalresearch.ca
It
is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have
consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to
9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against
their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration
of a bill were dispensed with.
The
excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of
an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the
legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit
bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and
bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.
According
to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally
called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the
requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress
were enraged by “news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are
still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits.”1 In
addition, as AP reported in October, “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying
dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer
dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,’ he said.”2
Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed.3
The
financial bailout legislation of September 2008 was only passed after
members of both Congressional houses were warned that failure to act
would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law.
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.4
Here are the original remarks by Senator Inhofe:
Speaking on
Rep.
Brad Sherman (D-CA 27th District) reported the same threat on the
Congressional floor (Rep. Sherman later downplayed his remarks slightly
on the Alex Jones show):
“The
only way they can pass this bill is by creating a panic atmosphere….
Many of us were told that the sky would fall…. A few of us were even
told that there would be martial law in
So
it is clear that threats of martial law were used to get this
reprehensible bailout legislation passed. It also seems clear that
Congress was told of a threat of martial law, not
itself threatened. It is still entirely appropriate to link such talk
to the Army’s rapid moves to redefine its role as one of controlling
the American people, not just protecting them. In a constitutional
polity based on balance of powers, we see the emergence of a radical
new military power that is as yet completely unbalanced.
The Army’s New Role in 2001: Not Protecting American Society, but Controlling It
This new role for the Army is not wholly unprecedented. The
But on January 19, 2001, on the last day of the
a.
In 1985, the Chief of Staff of the Army established the Army Survival,
Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) to ensure the continuity of
essential Army missions and functions.
ASRRS
doctrine was focused primarily on a response to the worst case 1980's
threat of a massive nuclear laydown on CONUS as a result of a
confrontation with the
b. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former
To
emphasize that Army continuity of operations planning is now focused on
the full all-hazards threat spectrum, the name "ASRRS" has been
replaced by the more generic title “Continuity of Operations (COOP)
Program.”7
This
document embodied the secret Continuity of Operations (COG) planning
conducted secretly by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others through the 1980s
and 1990s.8 This planning was initially for continuity measures in the
event of a nuclear attack, but soon called for suspension of the
Constitution, not just “after a nuclear war” but for any “national
security emergency.” This was defined in Reagan’s Executive Order 12656
of November 18, 1988 as “any occurrence, including natural disaster,
military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that
seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the
In
like fashion ARR 500-3 Regulation clarified that it was a plan for “the
execution of mission-essential functions without unacceptable
interruption during a national security or domestic emergency.”
Donald
Rumsfeld, who as a private citizen had helped author the COG planning,
promptly signed and implemented the revised ARR 500-3. Eight months
later, on 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld
implemented COG, a significant event of which we still know next to
nothing. What we do know is that plans began almost immediately – as
foreseen by COG planning the 1980s -- to implement warrantless
surveillance and detention of large numbers of civilians, and that in
January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on
American streets.10
Then in April 2002, Defense officials implemented a plan for domestic
Deep Events and Changes of Party in the White House
Like
so many other significant steps since World War Two towards a
military-industrial state, the Army’s Regulation 500-3 surfaced in the
last days of a departing administration (in this case the very last
day). It is worth noticing that, ever since the 1950s, dubious
events--of the unpublic variety I have called deep events--have marked
the last months before a change of party in the White House. These deep
events have tended to a) constrain incoming presidents, if the incomer
is a Democrat, or alternatively b) to pave the way for the incomer, if
he is a Republican.
Consider, in the first category, the following (when a Republican was succeeded by a Democrat):
* In December 1960 the CIA secured approval for the Bay of Pigs invasion of
*
In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush installed an outside Team B
intelligence unit to enlarge drastically estimates of the Soviet threat
to the
Equally important were events in the second category (when a Democrat was succeeded by a Republican):
* In late 1968 Kissinger, while advising the Johnson administration, gave secret information to the Nixon campaign that helped Nixon to obstruct the peace agreement in Vietnam that was about to be negotiated at the peace talks then taking place in Paris. (According to Seymour Hersh,“The Nixon campaign, alerted by Kissinger to the impending success of the peace talks, was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government” in Saigon. making it clear that a Nixon presidency would offer a better deal. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey.13 Kissinger was not the kind of person to have betrayed his president on his own personal initiative. At the time Nixon’s campaign manager, John Mitchell (one of the very few in on the secret), told Hersh that “I thought Henry [Kissinger] was doing it because Nelson [Rockefeller] wanted him to. Nelson asked Henry to help and he did.”14
* In 1980 the so-called October Surprise, with the help of people inside CIA, helped ensure that the Americans held hostage in
Both
the financial bailout, extorted from Congress and the escalated
preparations for martial law can be seen as transitional events of the
first category. Whatever the explanations for their timing, they will
constrain Obama’s freedom to make his own policies. I fear moreover
they may have the consequence of easing this country into unforeseen
escalations of the Afghan war.
The Intensive Quiet Preparations for Martial Law
Let us deal first with the preparations for martial law. On September 30, 2008, the Army Times announced the redeployment of an active Brigade Army Team from
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. . . . After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one. . . .They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.17
This
announcement followed by two weeks the talk of civil unrest and martial
law that was used to panic the Congress into passing Paulson’s bailout
legislation. Not only that, the two unprecedented events mirror each
other: the bailout debate anticipated civil unrest and martial law,
while the announced positioning of an active Brigade Combat Team on
U.S. soil anticipated civil unrest (such as might result from the
bailout legislation).
Then on December 17, 2008, US Northern Command chief General Renuart announced that “the
The US Army War College has also raised the possibility of the U.S. Army being used to control civil unrest, according to the Phoenix Business Journal:
A
new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of
Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis
lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and
government or runs on beleaguered banks.
“Widespread civil violence inside the
The
study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are
among possible domestic shocks that might require military action
within the
It
is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of
martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has
been unheralded. Senator Leahy was thus right to draw our attention to
it back on September 29, 2006, in his objections to the final form of
the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, which gave the
president increased power to call up the National Guard for law
enforcement:
It . . . should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law. There is good reason for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.20
This
quiet agglomeration of military power has not “just growed,” like
Topsy, through inadvertence. It shows sustained intention, even if no
one has made a public case for it.
How the Bush Administration Protected Predatory Lending and Let the Financial Crisis Grow
Let
us now consider the financial crisis and the panic bailout. No one
should think that the crisis was unforeseen. Back in February Eliot
Spitzer, in one of his last acts as governor of
Several
years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer
protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory
lending practices by mortgage lenders. …
Even
though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush
administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American
homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with
the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . Several state
legislatures, including
Let
me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an
obscure federal [Treasury] agency called the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil
War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks.
For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make
sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But
a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as
a tool against consumers.
In
2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC
invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal
opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering
them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented
states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against
national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and
so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state
banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.21
Eliot Spitzer submitted his Op Ed to the Washington Post on February 13. If it had an impact, it was not the one Spitzer had hoped for. On March 10 the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer’s encounter with a prostitute. According to a later Times story, “on Feb. 13 [the day Spitzer’s Op Ed went up on the Washington Post website] federal agents staked out his hotel in
It
is remarkable that the Mainstream Media found Spitzer’s private life to
be big news, but not his charges that Paulson’s Treasury was prolonging
the financial crisis, or the relation of these charges to Spitzer’s
exposure. As a weblog commented,
The
US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre
federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the
private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer's all out attack
on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.
While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the
Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer's private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.23
After Spitzer’s Op Ed was published, according to Greg Palast, the Federal Reserve, “for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.”24
What
are we to make of Spitzer’s charge that the Bush administration
interfered to preempt state laws against predatory lending, and of the
fact that the mainstream media did not report that? A petty motive for
the OCC’s behavior in 2003 might have been to allow the housing bubble
to continue through 2003 and 2004, thus facilitating Bush’s
re-election. But the persistence of Treasury obstruction thereafter,
despite the unanimous opposition of all fifty states, and the
continuing silence of the media about this disagreement, suggest that
some broader policy intention may have been at stake.
One
is struck by the similarities with the Savings and Loan scandal which
was allowed to continue through the Reagan 1980s, long after it became
apparent that deliberate bankruptcy was being used by unscrupulous
profiteers to amass illegal fortunes at what was ultimately public
expense.25
In
the same way, the long drawn-out housing bubble of the current Bush
decade, and particularly the derivative bubble that was floated upon
it, allowed the Bush administration to help offset the
trillion-dollar-plus cost of its Iraq misadventure,26 by creating
spurious securities that sold for hundreds of billions, not just in the
United States, but through the rest of the world.
In the long run, this was not a sustainable source of wealth for
The
trillion dollar meltdown,27 in other words, can be rationalized as
having helped finance the Iraq War. When we turn to the martial law
preparations, however, they are being made in anticipation of civil
unrest in the future. Why such intense preparation for this?
The obvious answer of course is memory of the rioting that occurred in
The
interest of Cheney and Rumsfeld in COG planning, including planning for
martial law, also envisaged full spectrum dominance. This is made clear
by their simultaneous engagement in the 1990s in the public Project for
the New American Century (PNAC). PNAC’s goals were stated very
explicitly in their document Rebuilding
In short PNAC’s program was a
blueprint for permanent overseas American empire, a project they
recognized would not be easily accepted by an American democracy. Their
call frankly acknowledged that it would be difficult to gain support
for their projected increase in defense
spending to “a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic
product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending
annually.” “The process of transformation,” the document admitted, “is
likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing
event—like a new
There
is of course every reason to hope that the disastrous era of Rumsfeld
and Cheney is about to end, with the election of Barack Obama. Obama
has made it clear that he will pursue a foreign policy dedicated to
diplomacy and multilateralism. In this spirit he has declared his
willingness to talk to
But Obama’s stated reason for disengagement from
One cannot predict the future, but one can examine the past. For thirty years I have been writing about the persistence in
If
a container of rocks and gravel is shaken vigorously, the probability
is that the gravel will gravitate towards the bottom, leaving the
largest rocks at the top. There is an analogous probability that, in an
on-going debate over engaging or withdrawing from a difficult military
contest, the forces for engagement will come out on top, regardless of
circumstances. Available military power tends to be used, and one of
the most remarkable features of history since 1945 is that this
tendency has not so far repeated itself with atomic weapons.
Let
me explain this metaphor in more concrete detail. Progressive societies
(in this era usually democracies) tend to expand their presence beyond
their geographic boundaries. This expanded presence calls for new
institutions, usually (like the CIA) free from democratic
accountability. This accretion of unaccountable power, in what I have
elsewhere called the deep state, disrupts the public state’s system of
checks and balances which is the underpinning of sane, deliberative
policy.
We
might expect of progressive democracies that they would evolve towards
more and more rational foreign policies. But because of the dialectic
just described, what we see is the exact opposite – evolution towards
foolish and sometimes disastrous engagements. When Britain became more
democratic in the late 19th Century, it also initiated the
Boer War, a war very suited to the private imperial needs of Cecil
Rhodes, but irrelevant if not deleterious to the interests of the
British people.33 Hitler’s dreams of a Third Reich, entailing a doomed
repeat of Napoleon’s venture into the heart of
For over a half century now, beginning with
Our archival historians have not yet fully understood either paradox, or the forces behind them. And as the philosopher George Santayana famously observed, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."38
The Future: Military Escalation Abroad and at Home?
Like
both Kennedy and Carter, Barack Obama is a complex mix of hopeful and
depressing qualities. Among the latter are his unqualified desire to
“finish” (i.e., “win”) the war in
Like
the government negotiated resolution of the savings-and-loan-scandal of
the 1980s, the financial bailout undisguisedly taxed the public wealth
of the republic to protect and even enrich those who for some time had
been undeservedly enriching themselves. Old-line leftists might see
nothing unusual about this: it conforms to their analysis of how the
capitalist state has always worked.
But
it is only characteristic of the American state since the Reagan
revolution of the 1980s. Before that time governmental policies were
more likely to be directed towards helping the poor; afterwards the
ideology of free-market literalism, even under
The result of these government policies has been summarized by Prof. Edward Wolff:
We
have had a fairly sharp increase in wealth inequality dating back to
1975 or 1976. Prior to that, there was a protracted period when wealth
inequality fell in this country, going back almost to 1929. So you have
this fairly continuous downward trend from 1929, which of course was
the peak of the stock market before it crashed, until just about the
mid-1970s. Since then, things have really turned around, and the level
of wealth inequality today is almost double what it was in the
mid-1970s…..
Up until the early 1970s, the
Past
excesses of American wealth, as in the Gilded Age and the 1920s, have
been followed by political reforms, such as the income tax, to reduce
wealth and income disparity. But as Kevin Phillips has warned, this
type of reform must happen again soon, or it may not happen at all:
As the twenty-first century gets underway, the imbalance of wealth and democracy in the
Judged
by this criterion, the Paulson bailout as passed was not just an
opportunity missed; it was a radical leap in the wrong direction. It is
not reassuring that the bailout was passed with the support of Obama
and the Democratic Party. This is rather a sign that plutocracy will
not be seriously challenged by either party in their present state.
Warren
Buffett may have been correct in saying that the bailout was necessary.
But it is not hard to think of reforms that should have accompanied it:
1) there should have been transparency, not secrecy
2) public funds should not have been made available for bonuses or dividends (The richest 10 percent of Americans own 85 percent of all stock).41
And as a bailout for the automobile industry is debated, two more reforms seem self-evident:
3) any reduction in income should not affect workers alone, but all levels of employees equally
4)
as has often been suggested, a limit should be established by law to
the maximum ratio of the highest remuneration to the lowest in any
industry – perhaps a ratio of twenty to one.
I
am not making these obvious suggestions with any expectation that they
will be passed or seriously debated. The plutocratic corruption of both
our parties makes such a prospect almost unthinkable.
What I do want to contemplate is the serious prospect of war.
In
the meantime, some aspects of the financial meltdown, although they
arose for many reasons and were not the result of some conspiratorial
cabal, may be prolonged because of their utility to the war-minded.
Consider that, from the perspective of maintaining
1) The dollar’s value against other international currencies, notably the euro, has improved, thus improving
2)
Thanks to the determined international marketing of overvalued
derivatives based on predatory lending, the resulting financial crisis
has been internationalized, with economies elsewhere suffering even
greater shocks than the
3) The price of oil has plummeted from $147 a barrel last July to under $40, thus weakening the economies of
The
Afghan situation is grim, but it is not hopeless. Two skilled
observers, Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, have proposed a political
solution for the entire region that would promise greater security for
the entire area than Obama’s ill-considered proposal to send 20,000
more
President-elect Obama and Western leaders have to adopt a comprehensive approach that sees the region [with Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, India, Russia, China, Iran, and the former Soviet states] as a unit with interlocking development issues to be resolved such as poverty, illiteracy and weak governance. There has to be a more comprehensive but more subtle approach to democratising the region and forcing powerful but negative stakeholders in local power structures - such as the drug mafias - either to change their thinking or be eliminated.44
That
observers with such recognized status are offering a sensible political
solution does not provide me with much optimism. For three decades now
Barnett Rubin has been offering sound advice on
I
repeat that the future is unpredictable. But I fear that Obama’s
proposal to send 20,000 additional troops will carry the day, with its
predictable consequences of a wider war in both
I earnestly hope that my fears are misplaced. Time will tell.
1.WCAX,
2 John Dunbar, AP, October 25, 2007, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081025/meltdown_evolving_bailout.html .
3.David Hirst, “Fox joins battle cry for details of
4 http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/12/15/daily34.html.
5. http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-2367-0-13-13--.html.
6. Rep. Brad Sherman, in the House, 8:07 EST PM, October 2, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8&NR=1.
Rep. Sherman later issued the following clarification: “I have no
reason to think that any of the leaders in Congress who were involved
in negotiating with the Bush Administration regarding the bailout bill
ever mentioned the possibility of martial law -- again, that was just
an example of extreme and deliberately hyperbolic comments being passed
around by members not directly involved in the negotiations.” Cf. Rep. Sherman on Alex Jones show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bH1mO8qhCs. .
7 Army Regulation 500-3, Emergency Employment of Army And Other Resources, Army Continuity Of Operations (COOP) Program, http://www.wikileaks.org/leak/us-army-reg-500-3-continuity-2001.pdf,
emphasis added. Cf. Tom Burghardt, “Militarizing the `Homeland’ in
Response to the Economic and Political Crisis: NORTHCOM's Joint Task
Force-Civil Support,” GlobalResearch, October 11, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10534 .
8 Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of
9 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 183-87.
10 Ritt Goldstein , “Foundations are in place for martial law in the
11 Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, 240-41.
12 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 60-61.
13 Robert Parry, “Henry Kissinger, Eminence Noire,” ConsortiumNews, December 28, 2008, http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/122808.html:
“Kissinger, … – while serving as a peace-talk adviser to the Johnson
administration – made obstruction of the peace talks possible by
secretly contacting people working for Nixon, according to Seymour
Hersh’s 1983 book, The Price of Power [p. 21].
14 Hersh, Price of Power, 18. Cf. Jim Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America (New York: William Morrow, 1978), 435: “Kissinger, married to a former Rockefeller aide, owner of a
15 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 93-118.
16 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 82-87, 91, 104-05.
17 “Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1,” Army Times, September 30, 2008, http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/. Cf. Michel Chossudovsky, “Pre-election Militarization of the North American Homeland, US Combat Troops in
18 Agence France-Presse, December 17, 2008, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iTBOy3JF8pVAthIthq8C1NrMf4Cg.
19 http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/12/15/daily34.html.
20 Remarks Of Sen. Patrick Leahy, National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2007
Conference Report, Congressional Record, September 29, 2006, http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html.
21
Eliot Spitzer, “Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush
Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers,” Washington Post, February 14, 2008; A25, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html?nav=hcmodule
. Three months earlier, on November 8, 2007, Governor Spitzer and New
York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had published a joint letter to
Congress, “calling for continued federal action to combat subprime
lending practices” (http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/1108071.html).
22 David Johnston and Philip Shenon, “
23
“Why Eliot Spitzer was assassinated: The predatory lending industry
had a partner in the White House,” Brasscheck TV, March 2008, http://brasschecktv.com/page/291.html.
24
Greg Palast, “Eliot’s Mess: The $200 billion bail-out for predator
banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked,” Air America Radio’s
Clout, March 14, 2008,
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/
25
Without suggesting that the scandal was in any way centrally
orchestrated or directed, it can be argued that the scandal was
permitted to drag on so long because it was allowing profits from the
illegal drug traffic to recapitalize the American economy and
strengthen the beleaguered U.S. dollar.
26 Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the
27 Charles R. Morris, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash (
28 Joint Vision 2020, http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/jvpub2.htm; Scott, The Road to 9/11, 20, 24. “Full spectrum dominance” repeated what had been outlined earlier in a predecessor document, Joint Vision 2010 of 2005, but with new emphasis on the statement that “the
29 Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf; Scott, The Road to 9/11, 23-24, 191-93.
30 Rebuilding America’s Defenses, 51, 75.
31 “War in
32 See e.g. Andrew Bacevich, Newsweek, December 8, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/171254: “In
33 For the role of the Rhodes-promoted Jameson Raid in instigating the Boer War, see Elizabeth Longford, Jameson’s Raid: The Prelude to the Boer War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982).
34 Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in
35 John Newman, JFK and
36 Ofira Seliktar, Failing the Crystal Ball Test: The Carter Administration and the Fundamentalist Revolution in
37 Brzezinski later boasted that his “secret operation was an excellent idea. It drew the Russians
into the Afghan trap” (“Les Révélations d’un ancien conseiller de Carter,” interview with
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15–21, 1998, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html; French version:
http://www.confidentiel.net/breve.php3?id_breve=1862; quoted at length in Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The
38 George Santayana, Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense (New York: Scribner's, 1905), 284.
39 Edward Wolff, “The Wealth Divide: The Growing Gap in the United States Between the Rich and the Rest,” Multinational Monitor, May 2003, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/America/Wealth_Divide.html. Cf. Edward Wolff, Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in
40 Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich (
41 Wolff, “The Wealth Divide.”
42 For McKinley’s mercantilist “large policy” as a response to depression, see Philip Sheldon Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895-1902 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972).
43 Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos in
44 Ahmed Rashid, “Obama's huge
45 Cf. Zia Sarhadi, “
Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher. His most recent book is The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War