Bill Moyer's PBS documentary "Buying The War"

Here's another documentary I suggest you watch, if you want to see another side of the news - the one you don't often get to see.

"Buying the War" examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what's changed? "More and more the media become, I think, common carriers of administration statements and critics of the administration," says THE WASHINGTON POST's Walter Pincus. "We've sort of given up being independent on our own."

It's an eye opener.

Enjoy.

Bill Moyers' Journal Buying the War


If you use the menu function, at the bottom right of that media player while it's playing, you'll find the rest of the show there to watch.

The Ghosts Of Nuremberg

Just seven days away from the fifty second anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trials, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on the rule of law it was based on, and it's relevance to today's world.

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.


The case as presented by the United States will be concerned with the brains and authority back of all the crimes. These defendants were men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders without whose evil architecture the world would not have been for so long scourged with the violence and lawlessness, and wracked with the agonies and convulsions, of this terrible war.

Robert H. Jackson
Chief of Counsel for the United States
Nuremberg Trials
November 21, 1945

Some definitions :

Jus ad bellum

An international agreement limiting the justifiable reasons for a country to declare war against another is concerned with jus ad bellum. In addition to bilateral non-aggression pacts, the twentieth century saw multilateral treaties defining entirely new restrictions against going to war. The three most notable examples are the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war as an instrument of national policy, the London Charter (known also as the Nuremberg Charter) defining "crimes against peace" as one of three major categories of international crime to be

prosecuted after World War II, and the United Nations Charter, which binds nations to seek resolution of disputes by peaceful means and requires authorization by the United Nations before a nation may initiate any use of force against another, beyond repulsing an immediate armed attack against its sovereign territory.

http:/

The UN Charter's prohibition of member states of the UN attacking other UN member states is central to the purpose for which the UN was founded in the wake of the destruction of World War II: to prevent war. This overriding concern is also reflected in the Nuremberg Trials' concept of a crime against peace "starting or waging a war against the territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of a state, or in violation of international treaties or agreements..." (crime against peace), which was held to be the crime that makes all war crimes possible.



A crime against peace, in international law, refers to the act of military invasion as a war crime, specifically referring to starting or waging war against the integrity, independence, or sovereignty of a territory or state, or else a military violation of relevant international treaties, agreements or legally binding assurances.

An important exception to the forgoing are defensive military actions taken under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Such defensive actions are subject to immediate Security Council review, but do not require UN permission to be legal within international law."Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations." (UN Charter, Article 51) The Security Council will determine if the action is legally the "right of individual or collective self-defence", or it may appoint another UN organ to do this.

The definition of crimes against peace was first incorporated into the Nuremberg Principles and later included in the United Nations Charter. This definition would play a part in defining aggression as a war crime.

May it please Your Honors, may the trial begin on this day with it's first witness.


Witness for the prosecution # 1 - Mr. Richard Pearle



"I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

- Richard Pearle , London, Nov. 2003

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".

Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.

Witness for the prosecution #2 - Mr.Kofi Annan

In a BBC interview, Annan said the war was "not in conformity with the Security Council, with the U.N. charter." When asked, "It was illegal?," Annan replied: "Yes, if you wish," adding: "I have indicated it is not in conformity with the U.N. Charter; from our point of view and from the Charter point of view, it was illegal."

And the U.N. Charter does lay out specific conditions for hostile action; as Article 39 states, "The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken ... to maintain or restore international peace and security." The charter authorizes the use of force only if sanctioned by the Security Council, or if a country is attacked or threatened with imminent attack (Article 51): "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

Witness for the prosecution # 3 - Sir Tony Blair

The situation could not therefore be clearer. There is a duty on Saddam to co-operate fully. At present he is not co-operating fully. Failure to do so is a material breach of Resolution 1441.
Should Dr Blix continue to report Iraqi non-cooperation, a second Resolution should be passed confirming such a material breach. President Bush and I agreed we should seek maximum support for such a Resolution, provided, as ever, that seeking such a Resolution is a way of resolving the issue not delaying or avoiding dealing with it at all. I continue to believe the UN is the right way to proceed. There is an integrity in the process set out in 1441 and we should follow it.

- Tony Blair
Transcript of a statement given by British Prime Minister Tony Blair following his summit with President Bush in Washington, House of Commons, 2/3/2003

Submitted to the official court record, this published statement from three UNSC member nations from November 2002:

In a joint 11 November 2002 statement, Russia, China and France said, “Resolution 1441 (2002) adopted today by the Security Council excludes any automaticity in the use of force.”

Witness for the prosecution # 4 - Sir Jeremy Greenstock

We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about "automaticity" and "hidden triggers" -- the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response... There is no "automaticity" in this resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion as required in paragraph 12. We would expect the Security Council then to meet its responsibilities.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s
ambassador for the United Kingdom
1441 co-sponsor
8 November 2002
UNSC

Witness for the prosecution # 5 - Mr John Negroponte

“[T]his resolution contains no "hidden triggers" and no "automaticity" with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the Council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA or a Member State, the matter will return to the Council for discussions as required in paragraph 12.

John Negroponte,
ambassador for the United States ,
8 November 2002
UNSC

May the following news article be submitted into the court's official record.

The US and British governments will begin work today on a new United Nations resolution that will set an ultimatum for Iraq to cooperate fully by next month or face war.

The US president, George Bush, confirmed yesterday that the US would prefer a second resolution. "We don't need a second resolution. It's clear this guy [Saddam Hussein] couldn't even care less about the first resolution. He's in total defiance with 1441. But we're working with our friends and allies to see if we can get a second resolution."

A security council official said the resolution was unlikely to be tabled until after Mr Blix has reported on February 28.

The US and Britain have narrowed down half a dozen variations to an agreement that the draft resolution should take the form of an ultimatum to Iraq. They are considering a list of tests, such as destruction of the Samoud missiles and unrestricted interviews with Iraqi scientists. It is expected to be short and use some of the language of resolution 1441, passed unanimously in November.

Failure to comply by a fixed date would see the UN declare the inspections process "no longer meaningful", a UN official said. UK ministers and officials hope that President Saddam may yet back down.

Tony Blair seemed confident at his monthly press conference yesterday that the security council would provide the vital diplomatic cover for war, that the process still had weeks to run, and that sceptical voters would be won over in the end.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,898549,00.html

May the court also enter this official British government document into the official record :

27. In these circumstances, I remain of the opinion that the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force. I have already advised that I do not believe that such a resolution need be explicit in its terms. The key point is that it should establish that the Council has conduced that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity offered by resolution 1441, as in the draft which has already been tabled.

35. In short, there are a number of ways in which the opponents of military action might seek to bring a legal case, internationally or domestically, against the UK, members of the Government or UK military personnel. Some of these seem fairly remote possibilities, but given the strength of opposition to military action against Iraq, it would not be surprising if some attempts were made to get a case of some sort off the ground. We cannot be certain that they would not succeed.

British Attorney General's Advice to Blair
on Legality of Iraq War

March 7, 2003

http://

As well as this one :

Downing Street Memo

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

Witness for the prosecution # 6 - Mr Alan Greenspan.


"Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in the area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

"I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point,

-former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
September 17, 2007

Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil."

It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs. They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: “Say I slew them not.” And the Queen replied, “Then say they were not slain. But dead they are...” If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.

Robert H. Jackson
Chief of Counsel for the United States
Nuremberg Trials
Closing statement
July 26, 1946

A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States

I found a rather interesting article on the Harper's Magazine website, which proposes to do a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the USA. That's something the CIA cannot legally do, by the way.

This one is done by someone that has previously worked on them, so it carries some weight in it's tone. NIE's are a standard part of intelligence work in the USA, and I can easily imagine something like this might be found in the files of various other intelligence agencies in the world.

I think it addresses some very interesting topics for a thread discussion, and some of it touches on things we have skirted around or discussed in other threads.

A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States

Posted on Wednesday, February 7, 2007. Originally from January 2007. By Chalmers Johnson.

A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States

By Chalmers Johnson

KEY JUDGMENTS

The United States remains, for the moment, the most powerful nation in history, but it faces a violent contradiction between its long republican tradition and its more recent imperial ambitions.

The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

Several factors, however, indicate that this course will be a brief one, which most likely will end in economic and political collapse.

Military Keynesianism: The imperial project is expensive. The flow of the nation's wealth—from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers—has created a form of “military Keynesianism,” in which the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.

The Unitary Presidency: Sustained military ambition is inherently anti-republican, in that it tends to concentrate power in the executive branch. In the United States, President George W. Bush subscribes to an esoteric interpretation of the Constitution called the theory of the unitary executive, which holds, in effect, that the president has the authority to ignore the separation of powers written into the Constitution, creating a feedback loop in which permanent war and the unitary presidency are mutually reinforcing.

Failed Checks on Executive Ambition: The U.S. legislature and judiciary appear to be incapable of restraining the president and therefore restraining imperial ambition. Direct opposition from the people, in the form of democratic action or violent uprising, is unlikely because the television and print media have by and large found it unprofitable to inform the public about the actions of the country's leaders. Nor is it likely that the military will attempt to take over the executive branch by way of a coup.

Bankruptcy and Collapse: Confronted by the limits of its own vast but nonetheless finite financial resources and lacking the political check on spending provided by a functioning democracy, the United States will within a very short time face financial or even political collapse at home and a significantly diminished ability to project force abroad.
DISCUSSION

Military Keynesianism

The ongoing U.S. militarization of its foreign affairs has spiked precipitously in recent years, with increasingly expensive commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. These commitments grew from many specific political factors, including the ideological predilections of the current regime, the growing need for material access to the oil-rich regions of the Middle East, and a long-term bipartisan emphasis on hegemony as a basis for national security. The domestic economic basis for these commitments, however, is consistently overlooked. Indeed, America's hegemonic policy is in many ways most accurately understood as the inevitable result of its decades-long policy of military Keynesianism.

During the Depression that preceded World War II, the English economist John Maynard Keynes, a liberal capitalist, proposed a form of governance that would mitigate the boom-and-bust cycles inherent in capitalist economies. To prevent the economy from contracting, a development typically accompanied by social unrest, Keynes thought the government should take on debt in order to put people back to work. Some of these deficit-financed government jobs might be socially useful, but Keynes was not averse to creating make-work tasks if necessary. During periods of prosperity, the government would cut spending and rebuild the treasury. Such countercyclical planning was called “pump-priming.”

Upon taking office in 1933, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, with the assistance of Congress, put several Keynesian measures into effect, including socialized retirement plans, minimum wages for all workers, and government-financed jobs on massive projects, including the Triborough Bridge in New York City, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, a flood-control and electric-power-generation complex covering seven states. Conservative capitalists feared that this degree of government intervention would delegitimate capitalism—which they understood as an economic system of quasi-natural laws—and shift the balance of power from the capitalist class to the working class and its unions. For these reasons, establishment figures tried to hold back countercyclical spending.

The onset of World War II, however, made possible a significantly modified form of state socialism. The exiled Polish economist Michal Kalecki attributed Germany's success in overcoming the global Depression to a phenomenon that has come to be known as “military Keynesianism.” Government spending on arms increased manufacturing and also had a multiplier effect on general consumer spending by raising worker incomes. Both of these points are in accordance with general Keynesian doctrine. In addition, the enlargement of standing armies absorbed many workers, often young males with few skills and less education. The military thus becomes an employer of last resort, like Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, but on a much larger scale.

Rather than make bridges and dams, however, workers would make bullets, tanks, and fighter planes. This made all the difference. Although Adolf Hitler did not undertake rearmament for purely economic reasons, the fact that he advocated governmental support for arms production made him acceptable not only to the German industrialists, who might otherwise have opposed his destabilizing expansionist policies, but also to many around the world who celebrated his achievement of a “German economic miracle.”

In the United States, Keynesian policies continued to benefit workers, but, as in Germany, they also increasingly benefited wealthy manufacturers and other capitalists. By the end of the war, the United States had seen a massive shift. Dwight Eisenhower, who helped win that war and later became president, described this shift in his 1961 presidential farewell address:

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

Eisenhower went on to suggest that such an arrangement, which he called the “military-industrial complex,” could be perilous to American ideals. The short-term economic benefits were clear, but the very nature of those benefits—which were all too carefully distributed among workers and owners in “every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government”—tended to short-circuit Keynes's insistence that government spending be cut back in good times. The prosperity of the United States came increasingly to depend upon the construction and continual maintenance of a vast war machine, and so military supremacy and economic security became increasingly intertwined in the minds of voters. No one wanted to turn off the pump.

Between 1940 and 1996, for instance, the United States spent nearly $4.5 trillion on the development, testing, and construction of nuclear weapons alone. By 1967, the peak year of its nuclear stockpile, the United States possessed some 32,000 deliverable bombs. None of them was ever used, which illustrates perfectly Keynes's observation that, in order to create jobs, the government might as well decide to bury money in old mines and “leave them to private enterprise on the well-tried principles of laissez faire to dig them up again.” Nuclear bombs were not just America's secret weapon; they were also a secret economic weapon.

Such spending helped create economic growth that lasted until the 1973 oil crisis. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan once again brought the tools of military Keynesianism to bear, with a policy of significant tax cuts and massive deficit spending on military projects, allegedly to combat a new threat from Communism. Reagan's military expenditures accounted for 5.9 percent of the gross domestic product in 1984, which in turn fueled a 7 percent growth rate for the economy as a whole and helped reelect Reagan by a landslide.

During the Clinton years military spending fell to about 3 percent of GDP, but the economy rallied strongly in Clinton's second term due to the boom in information technologies, weakness in the previously competitive Japanese economy, and—paradoxically—serious efforts to reduce the national debt. With the coming to power of George W. Bush, however, military Keynesianism returned once again. Indeed, after he began his war with Iraq, the once-erratic relationship between defense spending and economic growth became nearly parallel. A spike in defense spending in one quarter would see a spike in GDP, and a drop in defense spending would likewise see a drop in GDP.

To understand the real weight of military Keynesianism in the American economy today, however, one must approach official defense statistics with great care. The “defense” budget of the United States—that is, the reported budget of the Department of Defense—does not include: the Department of Energy's spending on nuclear weapons ($16.4 billion slated for fiscal 2006), the Department of Homeland Security's outlays for the actual “defense” of the United States ($41 billion), or the Department of Veterans Affairs' responsibilities for the lifetime care of the seriously wounded ($68 billion). Nor does it include the billions of dollars the Department of State spends each year to finance foreign arms sales and militarily related development or the Treasury Department's payments of pensions to military retirees and widows and their families (an amount not fully disclosed by official statistics). Still to be added are interest payments by the Treasury to cover past debt-financed defense outlays. The economist Robert Higgs estimates that in 2002 such interest payments amounted to $138.7 billion.

Even when all these things are included, Enron-style accounting makes it hard to obtain an accurate understanding of U.S. dependency on military spending. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that “neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing” or “details on how the appropriated funds are being spent.” Indeed, the GAO found that, lacking a reliable method for tracking military costs, the Army had taken to simply inserting into its accounts figures that matched the available budget. Such actions seem absurd in terms of military logic. But they are perfectly logical responses to the requirements of military Keynesianism, which places its emphasis not on the demand for defense but rather on the available supply of money.

The Unitary Presidency

Military Keynesianism may be economic development by other means, but it does very often lead to real war, or, if not real war, then a significantly warlike political environment. This creates a feedback loop: American presidents know that military Keynesianism tends to concentrate power in the executive branch, and so presidents who seek greater power have a natural inducement to encourage further growth of the military-industrial complex. As the phenomena feed on each other, the usual outcome is a real war, based not on the needs of national defense but rather on the domestic political logic of military Keynesianism. As U.S. Senator Robert La Follette Sr. observed, “In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for war, it insists on making war.”

George W. Bush has taken this natural political phenomenon to an extreme never before experienced by the American electorate. Every president has sought greater authority, but Bush—whose father lost his position as forty-first president in a fair and open election—appears to believe that increasing presidential authority is both a birthright and a central component of his historical legacy. He is supported in this belief by his vice president and chief adviser,****Cheney.

In pursuit of more power, Bush and Cheney have unilaterally authorized preventive war against nations they designate as needing “regime change,” directed American soldiers to torture persons they have seized and imprisoned in various countries, ordered the National Security Agency to carry out illegal “data mining” surveillance of the American people, and done everything they could to prevent Congress from outlawing “cruel, inhumane, or degrading” treatment of people detained by the United States. Each of these actions has been undertaken for specific ideological, tactical, or practical reasons, but also as part of a general campaign of power concentration.

Cheney complained in 2002 that, since he had served as Gerald Ford's chief of staff, he had seen a significant erosion in executive power as post-Watergate presidents were forced to “cough up and compromise on important principles.” He was referring to such reforms as the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires that the president obtain congressional approval within ninety days of ordering troops into combat; the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which was designed to stop Nixon from impounding funds for programs he did not like; the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, which Congress strengthened in 1974; President Ford's Executive Order 11905 of 1976, which outlawed political assassination; and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, which gave more power to the House and Senate select committees on intelligence. Cheney said that these reforms were “unwise” because they “weaken the presidency and the vice presidency,” and added that he and the president felt an obligation “to pass on our offices in better shape than we found them.”

No president, however, has ever acknowledged the legitimacy of the War Powers Act, and most of these so-called limitations on presidential power had been gutted, ignored, or violated long before Cheney became vice president. Republican Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire said, “The vice president may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last thirty years.”

Bush and Cheney have made it a primary goal of their terms in office, nonetheless, to carve executive power into the law, and the war has been the primary vehicle for such actions. John Yoo, Bush's deputy assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003, writes in his book War By Other Means, “We are used to a peacetime system in which Congress enacts laws, the President enforces them, and the courts interpret them. In wartime, the gravity shifts to the executive branch.” Bush has claimed that he is “the commander” and “the decider” and that therefore he does not “owe anybody an explanation” for anything.

Similarly, in a September 2006 press conference, White House spokesman Tony Snow engaged in this dialogue:

Q: Isn't it the Supreme Court that's supposed to decide whether laws are unconstitutional or not?

A: No, as a matter of fact the president has an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is an obligation that presidents have enacted through signing statements going back to Jefferson. So, while the Supreme Court can be an arbiter of the Constitution, the fact is the president is the one, the only person who, by the Constitution, is given the responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend that document, so it is perfectly consistent with presidential authority under the Constitution itself.

Snow was referring to the president's habit of signing bills into law accompanied by “statements” that, according to the American Bar Association, “assert President Bush's authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress.” All forty-two previous U.S. presidents combined have signed statements exempting themselves from the provisions of 568 new laws, whereas Bush has, to date, exempted himself from more than 1,000.

Failed Checks on Executive Ambition

The current administration's perspective on political power is far from unique. Few, if any, presidents have refused the increased executive authority that is the natural byproduct of military Keynesianism. Moreover, the division of power between the president, the Congress, and the judiciary—often described as the bedrock of American democracy—has eroded significantly in recent years. The people, the press, and the military, too, seem anxious to cede power to a “wartime” president, leaving Bush, or those who follow him, almost entirely unobstructed in pursuing the imperial project.

Congress: Corrupt and indifferent, Congress, which the Founders believed would be the leading branch of government, has already entirely forfeited the power to declare war. More recently, it gave the president the legal right to detain anyone, even American citizens, without warrant, and to detain non-citizens without recourse to habeas corpus, as well as to use a variety of interrogation methods that he could define, at his sole discretion, to be or not be torture.

The Courts: The judicial branch is hardly more effective in restraining presidential ambition. The Supreme Court was active in the installation of the current president, and the lower courts increasingly are packed with judges who believe they should defer to his wishes. In 2006, for instance, U.S. District Judge David Trager dismissed a suit by a thirty-five-year-old Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who in 2002 was seized by U.S. government agents at John F. Kennedy Airport and delivered to Syria, where he was tortured for ten months before being released. No charges were filed against Arar, and his torturers eventually admitted he had no links to any crime. In explaining his dismissal, Trager noted with approval an earlier Supreme Court finding that such judgment would “threaten ‘our customary policy of deference to the President in matters of foreign affairs.’”

The Military: It is possible that the U.S. military could take over the government and declare a dictatorship. That is how the Roman republic ended. For the military voluntarily to move toward direct rule, however, its leaders would have to ignore their ties to civilian society, where the symbolic importance of constitutional legitimacy remains potent. Rebellious officers may well worry about how the American people would react to such a move. Moreover, prosecutions of low-level military torturers from Abu Ghraib prison and killers of civilians in Iraq have demonstrated to enlisted ranks that obedience to illegal orders can result in their being punished, whereas officers go free. No one knows whether ordinary American soldiers would obey clearly illegal orders to oust an elected government or whether the officer corps has sufficient confidence to issue such orders. In addition, the present system already offers the military high command so much—in funds, prestige, and future employment via the military-industrial revolving door—that a perilous transition to anything resembling direct military rule would make little sense under reasonably normal conditions.

The People: Could the people themselves restore constitutional government? A grassroots movement to break the hold of the military-industrial complex and establish public financing of elections is conceivable. But, given the conglomerate control of the mass media and the difficulties of mobilizing the United States' large and diffuse population, it is unlikely. Moreover, the people themselves have enjoyed the Keynesian benefits of the U.S. imperial project and—in all but a few cases—have not yet suffered any of its consequences.

Bankruptcy and Collapse

The more likely check on presidential power, and on U.S. military ambition, will be the economic failure that is the inevitable consequence of military Keynesianism. Traditional Keynesianism is a stable two-part system composed of deficit spending in bad times and debt payment in good times. Military Keynesianism is an unstable one-part system. With no political check, debt accrues until it reaches a crisis point.

In the fiscal 2006 budget, the Congressional Research Service estimates that Pentagon spending on Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom will be about $10 billion per month, or an extra $120.3 billion for the year. As of mid-2006, the overall cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since their inception stood at more than $400 billion. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize‒winning economist, and his colleague, Linda Bilmes, have tried to put together an estimate of the real costs of the Iraq war. They calculate that it will cost about $2 trillion by 2015. The conservative American Enterprise Institute suggests a figure at the opposite end of the spectrum—$1 trillion. Both figures are an order of magnitude larger than what the Bush Administration publicly acknowledges.

At the same time, the U.S. trade deficit, the largest component of the current account deficit, soared to an all-time high in 2005 of $782.7 billion, the fourth consecutive year that America's trade debts set records. The trade deficit with China alone rose to $201.5 billion, the highest imbalance ever recorded with any country. Meanwhile, since mid-2000, the country has lost nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs. To try to cope with these imbalances, on March 16, 2006, Congress raised the national debt limit from $8.2 trillion to $9 trillion. This was the fourth time since George W. Bush took office that the limit had to be raised. Had Congress not raised it, the U.S. government would not have been able to borrow more money and would have had to default on its massive debts.

Among the creditors that finance this unprecedented sum, two of the largest are the central banks of China ($854 billion in reserves of dollars and other foreign currencies) and Japan ($850 billion), both of which are the managers of the huge trade surpluses these countries enjoy with the United States. This helps explain why the United States' debt burden has not yet triggered what standard economic theory would predict, which is a steep decline in the value of the U.S. dollar followed by a severe contraction of the American economy—the Chinese and Japanese governments continue to be willing to be paid in dollars in order to sustain American demand for their exports. For the sake of domestic employment, both countries lend huge amounts to the American treasury, but there is no guarantee how long they will want or be able to do so.

CONFIDENCE IN KEY JUDGMENTS

It is difficult to predict the course of a democracy, and perhaps even more so when that democracy is as corrupt as that of the United States. With a new opposition party in the majority in the House, the country could begin a difficult withdrawal from military Keynesianism. Like the British after World War II, the United States could choose to keep its democracy by giving up its empire. The British did not do a particularly brilliant job of liquidating their empire, and there were several clear cases in which British imperialists defied their nation's commitment to democracy in order to keep their foreign privileges—Kenya in the 1950s is a particularly savage example—but the people of the British Isles did choose democracy over imperialism, and that nation continues to thrive as a nation, if not as an empire.

It appears for the moment, however, that the people of the United States prefer the Roman approach and so will abet their government in maintaining a facade of constitutional democracy until the nation drifts into bankruptcy.

Of course, bankruptcy will not mean the literal end of the United States any more than it did for Germany in 1923, China in 1948, or Argentina in 2001. It might, in fact, open the way for an unexpected restoration of the American system, or for military rule, revolution, or simply some new development we cannot yet imagine. Certainly, such a bankruptcy would mean a drastic lowering of the current American standard of living, a loss of control over international affairs, a process of adjusting to the rise of other powers, including China and India, and a further discrediting of the notion that the United States is somehow exceptional compared with other nations. The American people will be forced to learn what it means to be a far poorer nation and the attitudes and manners that go with it.

http://www.harpers.org/RepublicOrEmpire.html

Particularly in regards to it's reference to "military Keynesianism " , I think it strikes a rather valid target. If one spends a hefty percentage on one's budget on preparations for war - war will be the inevitable result (in the long run).

The amount of money injected into the "war machine" certainly adds to the GDP of the country. If the economy is in a sorry state today, one can only imagine what it might be without the billions of dollars going to US corporations thanks to things like the war in Iraq.

We have a President (Eisenhower) who , as a last gift to the nation, warned it of the implications of the military-industrial complex. That aspect of the US economy is orders of magnitude greater than it was then Eisenhower gave that speech.

That type of thinking also leads, as this author suggests, to an executive that sees itself as all powerful. Instead of serving the people, it serves it's own selfish interests. Any attempt at the population to take power back is seen as a threat. Thanks to the money rolling into the system (and both parties coffers) , it makes elected officials far less likely to complain - since they are in fact gaining directly from this industry.

The fact that this current "war on terror" cannot ever be declared over (in realistic terms) means that there is no limit to this feedback loop. One cannot defeat an enemy that has no territory.

The worst aspect of this is that we've seen that all this money and technology seems not to be able to produce it's desired geopolitical effect when exerted. In the case of Iraq, a nation the size of California and with 26 million citizens (seven million less than California), a "superpower" cannot ensure success on the ground.

So what we are faced with here is a situation where the internal American dynamics of the mix of economics and politics produce a **stard child of militarism that is occasionally unleashed against some third party. That no longer seems to be able to make the changes needed to ensure success, as originally set out in the concept of going to war.

Which leads us to a question :

Is this the best way to ensure a more peaceful world, or does it condemn America to being a causative part of a more violent one ? There is far more money to be made through fear and war in the current system.

The Sins Of The Father - Iraq/America Relations (1980-1992)

One of the more interesting parts of the political discussion is how Democrats are often referred to as assisting terrorists, or working against the best interests of the USA. What makes that type of language all the more fascinating, not to mention deeply ironic, is how much icons of American Republican political power were the main source of Saddam's rise to power.

The recent history of Iraq/America relations starts with the severing of diplomatic relations with Iraq in 1967, after the Six Day War.

Into the Eighties, Iraq was on the list of countries that were supporting terrorism, thus blocking any possibility of foreign aid. That was changed, as the ripples from the 1979 Khomeni lead revolution in Iran (and the embassy hostage crisis) caused American politicians to review Iraq's place in that new area of concern.

Washington's supportive policy toward Iraq began in 1982. Hussein was in the second year of his war with Iran and the conflict was not going well for Baghdad. The Reagan Administration, while officially neutral, decided to help Iraq as a means of containing the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The State Department responded by removing Iraq from the terrorism list in February, 1982, an action opposed by some within the Administration. Four former officials said in interviews that there was no evidence that Iraq's support of terrorists had waned.

"All the intelligence I saw indicated that the Iraqis continued to support terrorism to much the same degree as they had in the past," said Noel Koch, then in charge of the Pentagon's counterterrorism program. "We took Iraq off the list and shouldn't have. . . . We did it for political reasons."

The assertion was supported by a secret 1988 memo in which Deputy Secretary of State John Whitehead wrote, "Even though it was removed from the terrorism list six years ago, (Iraq) had provided sanctuary to known terrorists, including Abul Abbas of Achille Lauro fame."

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg00776.html

And so the die was cast, which leads us to todays headlines.

What followed was massive support to a well known tyrant. The leading supporter of Saddam's rise to power in the era was the father of the current President. Cheney, Baker, and others were also in key positions.

Almost immediately after Iraq was dropped from the list, Washington provided loan guarantees to enable it to buy such American commodities as rice and wheat through the Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corp.

Two years later in 1984, Bush personally pressed the federal Export-Import Bank to guarantee $500 million in loans so that Iraq could build a controversial oil pipeline, according to classified government documents.

And throughout much of the period from 1982 to the end of the Reagan Administration, efforts were made to funnel arms as well as economic aid to Baghdad -- sometimes through the Pentagon and sometimes through U.S. allies in the Middle East. Some of the specific arms plans failed to work but government sources said that significant quantities of arms did reach Baghdad as a result of U.S. efforts.

At one point in 1982, for example, a proposal was put forward to trade four American-made howitzers to Iraq for a Soviet T-72 tank, according to classified documents. The T-72 was of particular importance according to a secret July, 1982, report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, because it was protected by a new type of armor, which might prove invulnerable to American firepower. A second plan in 1983 would have allowed Iraq to buy $45 million worth of 175-millimeter long-range
guns and ammunition in exchange for turning over a Soviet tank.

Pentagon officials also reported to then-Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger "that Iraqi officials said it might be possible to exchange a (Soviet Hind) helicopter for permission to buy 100 Hughes helicopters" equipped with TOW missiles, according to a secret Pentagon memo.

For various reasons, each of these deals fell through. The helicopter transaction was scrapped after the late Richard Stillwell, a retired general who was then deputy undersecretary of defense, objected to working with an Iraqi-sponsored arms trafficker with a reputation for questionable
dealings.

"While I fully recognize the value to the U.S.A. of obtaining an MI-24 HIND, I recommend against pursuing this particular deal because . . . the potential for causing embarrassment to the U.S. government is too great," Stillwell wrote in a top-secret memo for Weinberger in 1983.

In a recent interview, Weinberger refused to discuss any of the proposed exchanges. Although low-level Pentagon operatives saw the arms swaps or sales to Iraq as a means to obtain Soviet technology, two officials say that Weinbeger saw it as a pretext to begin covert and direct arms shipments to Iraq. But Weinberger did acknowledge being part of a faction in the Reagan Administration that favored Iraq over Iran. "Many of us thought it would be better if Iraq won," said Weinberger, now a lawyer in private practice.

A number of classified State Department cables also describe proposals in 1982 and 1983 by William Eagleton, the senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad, to funnel arms to Iraq through allies in the Middle East. "We can selectively lift restrictions on third-party transfers of U.S.-license military equipment to Iraq," he said in an October, 1983, cable.

Although initially rejected, other documents and interviews with former U.S. officials indicate that the policy was pursued on a covert basis with Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait and that arms were transferred to Iraq.

"There was a conscious effort to encourage third countries to ship U.S. arms or acquiesce in shipments after the fact," said Howard Teicher, who monitored Middle East policy at the National Security Council in the Reagan Administration. "It was a policy of nods and winks."

While the American rationale was that Hussein was a buffer against Iran, classified records show U.S. support for his regime continued unabated after the official cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War was signed in August, 1988, and after Iraq's chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish villages on July 19, 1988.

In fact, in August, 1988, Deputy Secretary of State Whitehead recommended in a secret policy memo that "there should be no radical policy changes now regarding Iraq."

The pro-Iraq strategy was embraced by Bush when he became President. His Administration continued to encourage the transfer of U.S.-supplied arms to Iraq from Arab allies, according to interviews
and classified documents.

In NSD 26, he said, "Access to the (Persian) Gulf and the key friendly states in the area is vital to U.S. national security." Included among those states was Iraq, and Bush ordered federal agencies to expand political and economic ties with Baghdad.

NSD 26 came at the height of attempts by the Agriculture Department and other agencies to slash the largest U.S. aid program to Iraq -- the commodity loan guarantees.

Set up to help U.S. farmers increase exports, the program guarantees repayment of bank loans to foreign governments for purchases of American commodities. If the foreign government defaults on the loan, U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab.

Regulations require the Agriculture Department to allocate guarantees on the basis of the receiving country's agricultural needs, its market potential and the likelihood that the loans will be repaid. Classified documents show, however, that foreign-policy considerations played a decisive role in allocating credits to Iraq.

The Iraqis themselves raised the idea of U.S. guarantees for food aid in 1983, a time when U.S. officials feared that Hussein might be overthrown because of food shortages caused by the Iran-Iraq War.

Before the year was out, the first $402 million in Agriculture Department loan guarantees was approved for Iraq. In 1984, the amount rose to $513 million and it eventually reached $1.1 billion in 1988.

As the guarantees increased, so did concerns. The primary forum for airing these anxieties was a little-known, interagency organization called the National Advisory Council.

Advisory Council documents show that beginning in 1985, a number of members representing the Federal Reserve Board, Treasury Department and the Export-Import Bank counseled or voted at different times against increases of aid to Iraq. They feared that Iraq was not credit-worthy and would not be able to repay the billions owed.

Their concerns intensified when on Aug. 4, 1989, FBI and Customs Service agents raided the Atlanta branch of an Italian bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, and uncovered $4 billion in unauthorized loans to Iraq, including $900 million guaranteed by the Agriculture Department program.

Nevertheless, top Bush Administration officials, including Secretary of State Baker, discounted the protests in the interagency group and sought another $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq in the fall of 1989, to be given in two installments.

- Ibid

There's James Baker again, a close family friend and fixer of the Bush family, front and center when Iraq needed aid. By this point the Iran/Iraq war was over, yet the push to support Hussein continued unabated.

Saddam was, without any doubt, as brutal a leader then as he was in 2003.

The gassing of the Kurds had occurred from 1987-1989. Pictures of the Halabja massacre were already headline items.

Strangely enough, concerning Halabja, US military intelligence had discounted Iraq as being the source of those gas attacks.

...immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent - that is, a cyanide-based gas - which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

Pelletiere, "A War Crime, or an Act of War?" The New York Times, January 31, 2003

The official U.S. government reaction to Halabja? At first the government downplayed the reports, which were coming from Iranian sources. Once the media had confirmed the story and pictures of the dead villagers had been shown on television, the U.S. denounced the use of gas. Marlin Fitzwater told reporters, "Everyone in the administration saw the same reports you saw last night. They were horrible, outrageous, disgusting and should serve as a reminder to all countries of why chemical warfare should be banned." But as Power observes, "The United States issued no threats or demands." The government's objection was that Saddam had used gas to kill his own citizens, not that he had killed them. Indeed, subsequently State Department officials indicated that both sides--Iraq and Iran--were responsible perhaps for the gassing of civilian Kurds.

On August 20, 1988 Iran and Iraq ended their war. Within days Iraq again gassed the Kurds. A front-page story in the New York Times summed up the purpose of the latest assault: "Iraq has begun a major offensive [meant to] crush the 40-year-long insurgency once and for all." After a delay of weeks Secretary of State George Shultz condemned the assaults. But the United States again failed to act, even as hundreds of thousands of Kurds were being uprooted from their homes and forced into the mountains, tens of thousands killed. By 1989, says Powers, 4,049 Kurdish villages had been destroyed.

Why had the United States not acted? That was what William Safire and a few other columnists in the media wanted to know. Years later James Baker explained:

Diplomacy--as well as the American psyche--is fundamentally biased toward "improving relations." Shifting a policy away from cooperation toward confrontation is always a more difficult proposition--particularly when support for existing policy is as firmly embedded among various constituencies and bureaucratic interests as was the policy toward Iraq."

Domestic special interests had a stake in the survival of Saddam. Exports to Iraq of American agricultural products were large: 23 percent of U.S. rice exports went to Iraq; a million tons of wheat. When members of Congress threatened to pass a sanctions bill against Iraq, the White House opposed the measure.

http://hnn.us/articles/862.html

U.S. intelligence was worried about his potential as a regional threat.

Rumsfeld shook his hand.

By early 1990, Iraq had used the first $500 million and was asking for the second installment. The NSC and the State Department pressed to have the aid released.

Again there was resistance. Iraqi officials had been implicated more deeply in the growing Banca Nazionale affair and government analysts were more skeptical about Iraq's ability to repay its growing foreign debt because it was spending so much on arms.

"In the worst-case scenario, investigators would find a direct link to financing Iraqi military expenditures, particularly the Condor missile," Paul****rson, head of the Agriculture Department program that aided the Iraqis, wrote in a Feb. 23, 1990, memo to his superior.

Condor was an Iraqi effort to develop an intercontinental missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. While****rson later told a congressional committee that he was only speculating about the Condor, his warning reflected growing evidence that the Agriculture aid had gone for military
uses.

Then on March 27, 1990, the U.S. Customs Service thwarted an effort by Iraq to obtain American-made triggers for nuclear weapons. And in a speech that same month, Hussein issued his threat to "burn half of Israel." Publicly, at least, President Bush promised a crackdown on exports to Iraq, saying that "nuclear proliferation . . . continues to pose serious threats to U.S. interests, as well as the interests of our friends in the region."


Pretty strong stuff. Long range missiles, nuclear triggers, "burning Israel"....

At the same time, there was an economic benefit to certain US industries, which seems to have been the overriding concern.


In 1989 President George Herbert Walker Bush took power and ordered a review of United States policy toward Iraq. According to Power:

The study ... deemed Iraq a potentially helpful ally in containing Iran and nudging the Middle East peace process ahead. The "Guidelines for U.S.-Iraq Policy" swiped at proponents of sanctions on Capital Hill and a few human rights advocates who had begun lobbying within the State Department. The guidelines noted that despite support from the Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, and State Departments for a profitable, stable U.S.-Iraq relationship, "parts of Congress and the Department would scuttle even the most benign and beneficial areas of the relationship, such as agricultural exports." The Bush administration would not shift to a policy of dual containment of both Iraq and Iran. Vocal American businesses were adamant that Iraq was a source of opportunity, not enmity. The White House did all it could to create an opening for these companies"Had we attempted to isolate Iraq," Secretary of State James Baker wrote later, "we would have also isolated American businesses, particularly agricultural interests, from significant commercial opportunities."

http://hnn.us/articles/862.html

Dollars, and the the corporations, were the source of the push towards enabling Saddam and Iraq.

On April 16, 1990, CIA Director Robert M. Gates, then deputy national security adviser, chaired an interagency meeting to discuss Iraqi policy. At that meeting, Commerce Undersecretary Dennis Kloske presented a variety of proposals to restrict licenses of high-tech technology with potential military uses to Iraq. The proposals were rejected.

On June 8, Kloske also sent a classified memo to Gates recommending a limited proposal to tighten up controls of exports to Iraq for technology with ballistic-missile applications. That proposal was rejected as well.

Hussein had also begun his campaign of overt threats against Kuwait, accusing his tiny neighbor of economic warfare and vowing to retaliate.

Yet as late as July 9, 1990, April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, assured Iraqi officials that the Bush Administration was still trying to get the second $500 million released, according to a classified cable.

Only on Aug. 2, 1990, did the Agriculture Department officially suspend the Agriculture Department guarantees to Iraq -- the same day that Hussein's tanks and troops swept into Kuwait.

- Ibid

What's strange is that there is no tactical need for Iraq in the region at this time. The war with Iran is over. All sorts of red lights are being seen as to Saddam's increasing desire to get WMD's , and delivery systems. The "Phantom of Saddam" (2006), was no comparison to the "Reality of Saddam (1990). Again, his brutality is by this point not only well known, it's a historical fact.

At the top levels of the US intelligence services, these signs are being interpreted properly. In the White House, under Bush Sr. and Cheney, political pressure is being applied to ignore the threats - and assist Iraq with billions of US dollars.

This is part of a long continuing process, started in the Reagan White House. One of it's strongest proponents was President George Bush Sr.

1984
* June: Vice President Bush telephones the president of the Export-Import Bank and helps persuade him to approve $500 million in loan guarantees so Iraq can build an oil pipeline.

1987
* Late February: Vice President Bush telephones the new president of the Export-Import Bank and successfully lobbies for Iraq to receive $200 million in new loan guarantees from the federal agency.

* March 2: Vice President Bush meets with Iraqi ambassador Nizar Hamdoon and tells him that two requests by Iraq for sensitive American technology had been approved over objections from the Defense Department.

1988
* Aug. 19: Iraq and Iran sign official cease-fire ending 8-year war.

1989
* Early October: President Bush signs a secret national security directive ordering U.S. agencies to expand political and economic ties with Iraq.

* Oct. 31: Secretary of State James A. Baker III telephones Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter and persuades him to reverse Agriculture's position and approve $1 billion in new loan guarantees to Iraq.

* Nov. 8: The $1 billion is approved despite concerns by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve about a growing scandal involving Iraq and the Agriculture credits.

1990
* April 19: White House National Security Council thwarts efforts by Commerce Department to stem the flow of U.S. technology to Iraq.

* July 9: April Glaspie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, assures officials in Baghdad that the Bush Administration is still trying to obtain the release of the second $500 million of the $1 billion approved in November.

* Aug. 2: Iraq invades Kuwait and the Agriculture Department officially ends loan guarantees to Iraq that have amounted to $5 billion since 1983.

- Ibid

"Our administration's review of the previous Iraq policy was not immune from domestic economic considerations."

- James Baker


This seems to be the one constant in the history between Iraq and the USA.

So the next time an extreme right winger, or the President, points out how much the Democrats are against the country, or how Democrats are friends with the enemy, perhaps a review of history will remind all of us that the same group of people that assisted Saddam on the way up are still around. They were all Republicans.

Many of them are still in power, or were until recently. Over the course of the last twenty years or so, one can trace direct links to these people, and to American foreign and economic policy on Iraq. They are deeply intertwined, like a stubborn vine clinging to a chain link fence.

Bush Jr (the son of the elder that was Iraq's biggest supporter) , Cheney, Rumsfeld, Baker....

The same people that empowered him, for economic and political reasons, are still making money as he lies dead in that grave in Tikrit.

None of them were Democrats.

Another documentary on the Iraq War I recommend

If you click on the link above, you can watch the documentary on Google Video.

It's called "Real War On Terror - America's Secret Shame" ,but that title is quite misleading. It gives us a chance to see the soldiers, and their families, that fight this war.

This documentary is a bit tough to watch at times. It shows badly wounded troops, and speaks with the families of the dead. It's the reality of war, and it should not be hidden from our view. Looking away won't make it go away.

In speaking with the injured, you see just how good these people really are. They miss their units, their brothers-in-arms, and wish that they could return back to them.

Sometimes, with lost limbs.

And they still think they can give more.

"No matter what you think about the war, never disrespect the warrior"

This is a side of the war is all too often hidden from us, by design.

If this war concerns you, and it should, then I suggest you take a look at it.



Some other parts of the same series :

Real War On Terror - Iraq The Reckoning : again, a warning. In this documentary you will see people blown up and shot dead. This too is the face of war.

It mainly speaks of why this sectarian violence exists today. How both American and British politicians both neglected to address the post-war dynamics of Iraq. Those dynamics were predictable, and the failure to address them then is the reason we see what we see now.

Real War On Terror - Kidnap And Torture American Style

This is on the subject of extraordinary rendition of suspects to countries that torture.

You can find both on the same site.

Why War ? The Military Industrial Complex examined.

Perhaps were we to make war a non-profit affair, the world might be a safer place to live. Without profit, much of the incentive for war would disappear. It would then be used only when truly called for.

Let's take a look at some of the corporations involved in this military industrial complex, and see what we can discover about their ties to government.

Lockheed Martin

CEO: Robert J. Stevens
Military contracts 2005: $19.4 billion
Total contributions for the 2004 election cycle: $2,212,836*

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=9

Bruce P. Jackson - Lockheed Martin Corp.: Vice President for Strategy and Planning, 1999-2002; Director of Global Development, 1997-1999; Director of Defense Planning and Analysis, 1995-1997

Martin Marietta Corp.: Director for Strategic Planning, Director for Corporate Development Projects, 1993-1995

Lehman Brothers (investment bank): 1990-1993

Not to mention :

Project for the New American Century: Board of Directors

Committee for the Liberation of Iraq: Founder, Chairman of the Board

Republican National Convention: Chair of Platform Subcommittee on Foreign Policy, 2000 Presidential Campaign

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1233

Former Lockheed Martin Vice-President Bruce Jackson was a finance chair for the Bush for President campaign; Vice-Presidential spouse Lynne Cheney is a former board member of Lockheed Martin, and used to receive $120,000 per year from the company for attending a handful of semi-annual board meetings.

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/081203.html

Jackson, a long-time proponent of NATO expansion, had considerable success lobbying Eastern European countries to support U.S. policy in Iraq. He helped draft a declaration for the so-called Vilnius 10 countries in February 2003 rebuking French President Jaques Chirac’s position on Iraq. He then convinced the Vilnius Ten countries to sign the declaration, saying that it would help win the U.S. Senate’s approval of their membership into NATO. Said the declaration, "The newest members of the European community agree that we must confront the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and that the United Nations must now act."

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1233

According to the Arms Trade Resource Center, Lockheed Martin gets $105 from each U.S. taxpayer and $228 from each U.S. household. In 2002 the company was effectively taxed at 7.7% compared to an average tax rate for individuals of 21-33%.

1995-2005 annual growth rate % 9.6

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/799.html



Northrop Grumman

CEO: Ronald Sugar
Military contracts 2005: $13.5 billion
Campaign contributions in 2004: $1.68 million (defense related)
$1.77 million (total)

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=11

And the company is politically savvy as well, having given $8.5 million in federal campaign contributions from 1990-2002, which has paid off over the years in spades. In December 2003, Northrop Grumman and partner Raytheon won a contract potentially worth more than $10 billion with the Pentagon for a missile defense system. It’s now the third largest “defense” company in the US, after Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Former Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems chief James Roche served as George Bush's Secretary of the Air Force for two years.

Now based in Fairfax, Virginia, the company has been controlled in the past through a web of interlocking ownership by a partnership that included James A. Baker III and Frank Carlucci, former U.S. secretaries of state and defense under Presidents George Bush senior and Ronald Reagan respectively.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=11


Boeing

CEO: Jim McNerney
Military contracts 2005: $18.3 billion
Total contributions for the 2004 election cycle: $1,659,213*

The lobbying efforts of Boeing, and the revolving door between the US government and the Chicago-based giant, are legendary. But Boeing’s influence-peddling finally turned sour in December 2003 when Boeing CEO Philip M. Condit was forced to resign in the wake of revelations of that the company negotiated the hiring of top Air Force procurement official Darlene Druyun while Druyun was setting up a lucrative $27.6 billion leasing deal of Boeing’s 767 air-refueling aircrafts over a period of ten years. The deal, which went through despite controversy, will cost taxpayers up to $10 billion dollars more than if the Air Force has purchased the aircrafts outright.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has sharply limited the information he is willing to let Congress see on a controversial defense contract that is the focus of multiple investigations.

Rumsfeld took a hard line even with fellow Republicans who want information from him about a proposed $23 billion deal for the Air Force to buy and lease 100 Boeing 767 aerial refueling tankers. Rumsfeld's refusal to give senators all the materials they requested could provoke a rare congressional subpoena.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11366

But Boeing still has a lot of well-connected people looking out for its interests. John Shalikashvili, retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is on the Boeing board. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Rudy de Leon heads up Boeing's Washington office.

After September 11th Boeing beefed up its political connections by hiring former Senator Bennett Johnson (D-LA) and former Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY).

Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Boeing's senior vice president for international relations, uses his forty years of experience to generate business for Boeing with foreign governments and corporations.

Richard Perle, former Chairman and current member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, is another important Boeing ally within the corridors of power. So it should come as no surprise that Boeing has provided Perle’s venture capital firm, Trireme Partners, with $20 million.

Two other Defense Policy Board members also work as consultants for Boeing: the Air Force’s General Ronald Fogelman and former Navy Admiral David Jeremiah.

Boeing ranks number sixty six in the Center for Responsive Politics’ list of the 100 biggest political donors since 1989. Over the nineties, Boeing handed out $7.6 million in Political Action Committee (PAC) and soft money contributions. During the 2002 election year, Boeing gave $909,134 in PAC contributions and $700,482 in soft money donations and its contributions added up to more than $1.5 million during the 2000 elections.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=10


General Dynamics

CEO: Nicholas D. Chabraja
Military contracts 2005: $10.6 billion
Total contributions in the 2004 election cycle: $1,437,602*

The Secretary of the Navy, Gordon England, is a former General Dynamics executive. The Boston Globe noted at the time of his nomination that "Gordon England had no military experience, but he had just the right qualification to become President Bush’s pick for secretary of the Navy: Two decades in the corporate world."

Former Pentagon and military officials populate General Dynamic’s Board of Directors, including Jay L. Johnson, Chief of Naval Operations in the U.S. Navy, Paul G. Kaminski, Under Secretary of U.S. Department of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, and George A. Joulwan, former U.S. Army Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had an interest in the company as well. He received $1 million of stock in General Dynamics, as well as more than $20 million in other corporate investments, when he joined the board of America Online.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=12


General Electric

CEO: Jeffrey R. Immelt
Military contracts 2005: $2.2 billion
Defense-related contributions in the 2004 election cycle: $220,950*

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=16

General Electric has been involved in so many cases of fraud that in the 1990s the Pentagon's Defense Contract Management Agency created a special investigations office specifically for the company, which indicted GE on 22 criminal counts and recovered $221.7 million. In one case, in 1992, GE entered a guilty plea to criminal and civil charges for defrauding the Pentagon in a case where money was funneled to the Israeli military. GE was fined $69 million for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

GE’s financial division has been another area ripe for fraud. GE was fined $100 million for trying to get bankrupt creditors to pay without informing the bankruptcy courts, in effect paying debts that they no longer legally owed. Not surprisingly, General Electric is the financial backer of WorldCom, the telecom company whose massive fraud and creative accounting led to the largest bankruptcy in US history.

The company has been involved in countless scandals, but strangely enough, they don’t seem to affect General Electric’s ability to win government contracts – but then, this is typical of all military contractors. According to a survey by the Center for Public Integrity, from 1990-2002, 30 of the US government’s top contractors were found guilty of fraud in 400 cases, leading to settlements and fines amounting to at least $3.4 billion. General Electric paid $982.9 million for 63 cases in this period.

Such repeated behavior and continued contracts wouldn’t be possible without friends in high places, of which General Electric. GE spent more than $31 million in 2001 and 2002 lobbying lawmakers; in 2000 it spent $16 million.

Reigning CEO Jack Welch had enormous influence and was consistently ranked CEO of the Year by the slavish business press; he was major Republican donor as well.

GE director Sam Nunn was senator for Georgia for 27 years, and also sits on the boards of ChevronTexaco.

GE’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel and Secretary, Benjamin W. Heineman, used to work for the US government’s Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

General Electric's defense sector gave $221,200 to political campaigns in the 2004 election cycle, with 50 percent going to Democrats and 50 percent to Republicans.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=16


Halliburton

CEO: David J. Lesar
Military contracts 2005: $5.8 billion
Oil and gas-related contributions in the 2004 election cycle: $221,249*

The biggest windfall in the invasion of Iraq has most certainly gone to the oil services and logistics company Halliburton . The company, which was formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, had revenue of over $8 billion in contracts in Iraq in 2003 alone. And while Halliburton ’s dealings in Iraq have been dogged everywhere by scandal – including now a criminal investigation into overcharging by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root for gas shipped into Iraq – Vice President Cheney manages to be doing quite well from the deal. He owns $433,000 unexercised Halliburton stock options worth more than $10 million dollars.

But Halliburton ’s history of benefiting from government largesse goes back a ways. From 1962 to 1972 the Pentagon paid the company tens of millions of dollars to work in South Vietnam, where they built roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases from the demilitarized zone to the Mekong Delta. The company was one of the main contractors hired to construct the Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean, according to Pentagon military histories.

In the early 1990s the company was awarded the job to study and then implement the privatization of routine army functions under then-secretary of defense Dick Cheney. When Cheney quit his Pentagon job, he landed the job of Halliburton 's CEO, bringing with him his trusted deputy David Gribbin. The two substantially increased Halliburton 's government business until they quit in 2000, once Cheney was elected vice president. This included a $2.2 billion bill for a Brown and Root contract to support US soldiers in Operation Just Endeavor in the Balkans.

After Cheney and Gribbin departed, another confidante of Cheney, Admiral Joe Lopez, former commander in chief for U.S. forces in southern Europe, took over Gribbin's old job of go-between for the government and the company, according to Brown and Root's own press releases.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=15

Science Applications International Corporation

CEO: Ken Dahlberg
Military contracts 2005: $2.8 billion
Campaign contributions in 2004: $781,410 (defense related)

SAIC, awarded control of the Iraqi Media Network, was not able to spin US propaganda in Iraq and ended up being forced to withdraw. But their financial prospects remain solid as supplier of surveillance technology to US spy agencies.

SAIC was given the contract to run the Occupational Authority’s Iraqi Media Network, including television stations, radio stations and newspapers. But even as propaganda goes, the network was such a flop – no Iraqis would watch it – that SAIC lost the contract this January.

But SAIC's biggest source of income is surveillance especially for the United States spy agencies: it is reportedly the largest recipient of contracts from the National Security Agency (NSA) and one of the top five contractors to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some 5,000 employees (or one in eight employees) have security clearances. Beyster himself has one of the highest top-secret clearances of any civilian in the country. "We are a stealth company," Keith Nightingale, a former Army special ops officer, told a magazine named Business 2.0. "We're everywhere, but almost never seen."

Today two of SAIC's most valuable products are: TeraText and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) data-mining programs that are used by intelligence agencies to sift the immense volumes of data they now collect by monitoring phone calls, faxes, e-mails, and other types of electronic communications.

SAIC became home to former United Nations weapons inspector David Kay who went to SAIC as a vice president from 1993 to 2002. Last year he was hired by the CIA to return to Iraq and head the search for weapons of mass destruction.

Critics note that the company has a revolving door with the spy agencies: NSA veteran William B. Black Jr. retired from the intelligence agency in 1997, went to SAIC for three years and returned to the NSA as deputy director in 2000. Two years later, SAIC won the $282 million job of overseeing the latest phase of Trailblazer, the most thorough revamping in the agency's history of its eavesdropping systems.

SAIC has dozens of other government contracts: it trains air marshals for the Federal Aviation Administration, works with Bechtel to run the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada on Western Shoshone traditional lands (despite major protests from the Native Americans), The Army hired the company to destroy old chemical weapons at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the National Cancer Institute uses SAIC to help run its research facility in Frederick, the Transportation Security Administration asked it to dispose of scissors and pocket knives confiscated from air travelers and SAIC's unmanned Vigilante helicopters, equipped with Raytheon's low-cost, precision-kill rockets, are to undergo testing by the Army.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=17

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Bechtel Group Inc.

Because Bechtel is a private corporation, however, the total number of its branches and affiliated companies is not publicly disclosed. From 1990 to fiscal year 2002, the company received more than $11.7 billion in U.S. government contracts—the sixth largest amount received by any of the approximately 70 companies with contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Along the way, company executives built strong relationships within the Arab world, including with Bin Laden Construction, owned by the Saudi family whose estranged son Osama became the symbol of international terrorism. The New Yorker magazine has reported that Bin Laden Construction holds a $10 million stake in the Fremont Group, formerly known as Bechtel Investments, a subsidiary of Bechtel until 1986.

By far the most influential hire, however, was George P. Shultz. After leaving the Nixon administration in 1974, where he served as Treasury secretary, Shultz joined Bechtel as its executive vice president. Shultz suspended his association with Bechtel when appointed secretary of state by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. In 1983, Shultz dispatched diplomatic envoy Donald Rumsfeld to meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to advocate for construction of a pipeline running from Iraqi oilfields to Jordan's port of Aqaba. According to documents recently obtained by the Institute for Policy Studies, Hussein was afraid Israel would bomb the pipeline, so an investor in the project—whom Bechtel claimed was not on its payroll—reportedly tried to arrange a deal through the U.S. Attorney General's office by which Israel would receive some $70 million per year not to bomb the pipeline. Critics accused Shultz of intervening on behalf of Bechtel, which he denied. Shultz rejoined Bechtel in 1989 as a member of its board of directors after retiring from the State Department. Upon returning, he learned that the company had assumed a $2 billion contract for project management of an Iraqi petrochemicals complex that manufactured ethylene oxide, a chemical used in the production of plastics. U.S. chemical experts pointed out, however, that the chemical was also a precursor to mustard gas. On Shultz's recommendation, Bechtel pulled out of the project. Shultz currently serves as a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

In 1998, Bechtel hired former Marine four-star general Jack Sheehan as senior vice president in charge of project operations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Sheehan served as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic and Commander in Chief U.S. Atlantic Command before his retirement in 1997. After leaving active duty, Sheehan served as Special Adviser for Central Asia for two U.S. defense secretaries. He also sits on the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon-appointed board that advises it on defense issues.

Other hires from the federal rolls include Charles "Chuck" Redman, who joined Bechtel in 1996 after a 22-year career in the State Department that included posts as ambassador to Sweden and Germany and special envoy to Haiti and Yugoslavia (he also worked as a spokesman for Schultz); Richard Helms, now deceased, who consulted on Iranian and Middle Eastern projects in 1978 after serving as CIA director and ambassador to Iran, becoming embroiled in the assassination attempt on Fidel Castro and overthrow of Chilean leader Salvador Allende; and J. Bennett Johnston, board member of Nexant Inc., the energy consultancy branch of Bechtel, who served as U.S. Senator from oil-rich Louisiana from 1972 to 1997, and authored the Energy Policy Act of 1992.

Bechtel's government influence has also worked in the other direction, where company officers have served or consulted in government capacities.

CEO Riley Bechtel was appointed in February 2003 to the President's Export Council, which advises the president on programs to improve trade.

Former Bechtel Energy Resources President Ross Connelly left the company in 1995 and in 2001 was appointed executive vice president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which provides financing and insurance for U.S. companies operating in other countries.

Daniel Chao, Vice President of Bechtel Enterprises Holdings Inc., was appointed a member of the Advisory Committee for the Export-Import Bank in August 2002. The Export-Import Bank provides loans, loan guarantees and other financial support for U.S. companies abroad, and has enjoyed a good relationship with Bechtel. In addition to awarding the company several loans, it was headed from 1977 to 1982 by former Bechtel vice president John L. Moore, and former Bechtel CEO Stephen D. Bechtel sat on its advisory committee from 1969 to 1972.

In addition, the Clinton administration appointed Bob Baxter, former president of Bechtel's Civil Global Industry Unit, to the Advisory Committee to the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection in 1998, and former Bechtel Technology & Consulting manager Larry Papay to the Panel on Energy R&D of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology in 1997.

http://www.public-i.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=6

This type of close connection, under both democratic and republican administrations, is troubling. This intermarriage of government and corporations can contaminate foreign policy decisions.

If the government and corporations begin to blur, and blend together, then there is a risk that decisions will be made based on financial motivations. Clearly, for many of these companies, war is good business. Unlike the private market, many times bids are done behind closed doors.

The record for many of these companies, in regards to integrity, is also not a good one. All too often you will find some of these names also listed in connection with scandals.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the world about the consequences of such a military industrial complex when he left office.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

What would he say now ?