More on Scary Policy Wonks (SPWs)

[Guest guest]

I know these current events posts of mine are not "jyotishical," but I feel we

are really in a state of emergency internationally -- and that one of the ways

to at least attempt to safeguard the interests of the vast majority of people

(from the schemes of basically a handful of very wealthy people who have

newfound confidence [hubris?] and are doing much to imperil the rest of us) is

to encourage all of us to use the Internet to disseminate information in the

form of "micromedia" like purposeful emails. I do not do this randomly or

capriciously, but with attention to quality of content and reaching a

meaningful number of thinking, concerned people, who might themselves then also

consider the issues and help disseminate this and other relevant material.

Think the current war is engineered to end with Iraq? I' haven't been too sure

about that -- really since I visited <www.pnac.org> some months back and

downloaded my own copy of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

report "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New

Century," which was published in 9/2000 -- and is transparently the basis of the

Bush Administration's national security policy, released in 9/2002 (see the

White House website). PNAC's roots wend back to an earlier version of the

document penned by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, circa about

1992, a policy recommendation at which even some extreme hawks were aghast. Now

this stuff appears to be par for the course. (You can get the PNAC right at the

source, at <http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm>

I heartily recommend reading the entire following article by Joshua Micah

Marshall, which I've excerpted here. The full text can be found at

<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/popup.html>

Marshall's piece is among one of the more sober articles on the culture of the

people I now term SPWs (see above).

Wisdom is everywhere. Both Organic and Engineered Ignorance are also everywhere.

We get to pick and choose.

Best,

Jesse Abbot

Practice to Deceive

Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan.

By Joshua Micah Marshall

Imagine it's six months from now. The Iraq war is over. After an initial burst

of joy and gratitude at being liberated from Saddam's rule, the people of Iraq

are watching, and waiting, and beginning to chafe under American occupation.

Across the border, in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, our conquering presence

has brought street protests and escalating violence. The United Nations and

NATO are in disarray, so America is pretty much on its own. Hemmed in by budget

deficits at home and limited financial assistance from allies, the Bush

administration is talking again about tapping Iraq's oil reserves to offset

some of the costs of the American presence--talk that is further inflaming the

region. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence has discovered fresh evidence that, prior

to the war, Saddam moved quantities of biological and chemical weapons to

Syria. When Syria denies having such weapons, the administration starts massing

troops on the Syrian border. But as they begin to move, there is an explosion:

Hezbollah terrorists from southern Lebanon blow themselves up in a Baghdad

restaurant, killing dozens of Western aid workers and journalists. Knowing that

Hezbollah has cells in America, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge puts the

nation back on Orange Alert. FBI agents start sweeping through mosques, with a

new round of arrests of Saudis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, and Yemenis.

To most Americans, this would sound like a frightening state of affairs, the

kind that would lead them to wonder how and why we had got ourselves into this

mess in the first place. But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding

American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything

going as anticipated.

In their view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting

rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction,

though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration

sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power

structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself

never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his

administration gave strong hints. In February, Undersecretary of State John

Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States

would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Meanwhile, neoconservative

journalists have been channeling the administration's thinking. Late last

month, The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has

in mind a "world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic

fundamentalism ... a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of

Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical

events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future."

.. . .

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/popup.html

[Guest guest]

I agree, also.

chrys333

 

 

> I Agree.

>

> Also an American, I do not listen the lies that has

> been used to justify this war. As spiritualist we have

> to look beyond the physical. We have to seek the

> truth.

>

> Suuport the troops and STOP THE WAR.