One CIA Manager Told His Staff, If Bush Wants To Go To War, It's Your Job To Gi

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http://www.militaryproject.org/article.asp?id=779

 

 

One CIA Manager Told His Staff, " If Bush Wants To Go To War, It's Your

Job To Give Him A Reason To Do So "

 

 

 

None of this military gluttony would have been possible without Bush's

war on terror. As St. Clair proves, this war was without cause either

in Afghanistan or Iraq. He documents how Bush overruled offers from

his own emissary Kabir Mohammed as well as the Taliban to deliver Bin

Laden to U.S. custody. Instead, hungry for revenge and imperial

domination, Bush launched a vengeful war for imperial domination of

Central Asia, its oil and natural gas reserves, and the revitalization

of the military industrial complex.

 

 

Grand Theft Pentagon

December 9, 2005 Book Review by Ashley Smith,

 

 

 

Jeffrey St. Clair, Grand Theft Pentagon: How War Contractors Rip Off

America and Threaten the World. Common Courage Press, 2005, 336 pages,

$18.95.

 

 

 

THE BUSH administration's reign of error and terror has left a pile of

corruption, waste and destruction that rivals the muck of the Augean

stable. Jeffrey St. Clair's new book, Grand Theft Pentagon,

accomplishes the Herculean task of exposing these abuses with

brilliant investigative journalism carried off with unmatched sarcasm.

 

 

 

After the Cold War, the military industrial complex was desperate for

a new conflict to legitimize profligate spending on war, weapons

systems and their associated services. St. Clair chronicles how Bush's

so-called " war on terror " has enabled our rulers to rekindle the

incestuous relationship between politicians, the Pentagon and military

contractors.

 

 

 

The marriage counselor of this foul union is none other than George

Bush himself.

 

 

 

In perhaps the funniest exposi of the Bushes yet written, St. Clair

tells the story of this company masquerading as a family. The portrait

is not very flattering, politically or personally. Demonstrating their

congenital penchant for putting profit before all else, the dynasty's

founder, Prescott Bush, barely escaped charges of treason for wheeling

and dealing with the Nazis during the Second World War.

 

 

 

The unlikely hero of this family saga is " W. " St. Clair shows how he

spent his youth boozing, snorting coke, womanizing, failing classes,

securing draft deferments, dodging national guard duty, and starting

and wrecking corporations for which other people paid the price.

 

 

 

But this loser found himself reincarnated as a caring conservative.

With the help of corporate money, lessons at the foot of Karl Rove,

lots of dirty tricks and apparently direct conversations with the

deity, he found himself selected by the Supreme Court as U.S. ruler on

the eve of 9/11.

 

 

 

Bush and the military-industrial complex used the tragedy to fulfill

their imperial fantasies and line their pockets. With Bush threatening

war on the planet, the Pentagon got the useless and dangerous Star

Wars Missile Defense, the unneeded B-767 tanker plane, the practically

untested F-22 fighter and the Stryker armored personnel carrier that

is almost useless in Iraq since it is vulnerable to improvised

explosive devices.

 

 

 

Boeing, Lockheed and a handful of other corporations thus bilked

American taxpayers of billions of dollars for senseless weapons.

 

 

 

These weapons contracts were just the tip of the iceberg. The Bush

administration also gave no-bid contracts to various private

corporations to service the " war on terror. "

 

 

 

Clinton and Gore opened up this new space for corporate plunder

through their " Reinventing Government " program that opened the

floodgate to subcontracting government services and industries.

Halliburton, Bechtel and others were consequently able to get

contracts for everything from doing military laundry to rebuilding

Iraq's oil industry.

 

 

 

Disproving neoliberal nostrums, they overcharged the government,

provided inferior service, and, in the case of rebuilding Iraq,

completely failed to restore electricity, running water or

reconstruction of buildings destroyed by the U.S. conquest. Despite

being investigated, they got off scot-free and, astonishingly, got new

contracts to rebuild New Orleans.

 

 

 

Far from calling the Bush administration, the politicians of both

parties have aided and abetted the process. As St. Clair writes,

" Today, the roots of the two dominant political parties intertwine and

are irrigated by the same freshets of corporate money, much of it

coming from the weapons industry cartel. "

 

 

 

None of this military gluttony would have been possible without Bush's

war on terror. As St. Clair proves, this war was without cause either

in Afghanistan or Iraq. He documents how Bush overruled offers from

his own emissary Kabir Mohammed as well as the Taliban to deliver Bin

Laden to U.S. custody. Instead, hungry for revenge and imperial

domination, Bush launched a vengeful war for imperial domination of

Central Asia, its oil and natural gas reserves, and the revitalization

of the military industrial complex.

 

 

 

He also shows how, from the very beginning, the Bush administration

set its eyes on Iraq, despite the fact that it had no connection to

9/11. In Rumsfeld's words, the Bush regime should " Go massive. Sweep

it all up. Things related and not. " So they concocted lies about

weapons of mass destruction to justify a war for empire and oil.

 

 

 

And they found willing liars in the rest of the establishment, from

the CIA to the Democratic Party and the servile corporate media. One

CIA manager told his staff, " If Bush wants to go to war, it's your job

to give him a reason to do so. " Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and the

rest of the Democrats save for a handful of dissenters joined the

chorus of liars.

 

 

 

But now the tide has turned against Bush, the war and its profiteers.

 

 

 

As St. Clair concludes, the task is to reinvigorate " a militant and

uncompromising popular movement, unaligned with either political

party, whose first task must be to put an end to the wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq and snuff out further imperial adventurism in

Iran, Syria and North Korea. " Grand Theft Pentagon is an invaluable

tool in the building of just such a movement.