The concept and even the name of the department of HOMELAND SECURITY were not a response to the events of 9/11. Even before George W. Bush took office, in September of 2000, policy advisors who eventually staffed high levels of the future Bush administration published the document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century” as a report of The Project for the New American Century, which can be downloaded from that organization’s website at http://www.newamericancentury.org
This document discusses the overall concept of the “desirability” of American “leadership” (dominance) of the world on a long-term basis, called the “Pax Americana”. The key to the concept is that this Pax Americana must be maintained by flexible, but powerful displays and use of military force around the world. It is understood with great seriousness that a series of theater wars and military actions will be necessary by the United States to preserve this “peace”. And it is demonstrated from the point of view of the perpetrators of this program that the security and “control” of the world must extend into outer space and cyberspace, with military control of both the heavens under a new branch of the military (the U.S. Space Command) and similar control of the Internet, including the ability to use the internet as a military tool to disrupt computer operations of enemy nations.
This was all written by future Bush policy advisors BEFORE Bush even took office. It demonstrates that the Bush administration came into being with an agenda and a written policy plan that would be amenable to allowing or creating conditions that would make the implementation of these policies politically feasible. Thus, our understanding of why Bush would permit an attack on the World Trade Center despite having essentially all the attack plans and perpetrators under surveillance is more easily understood.
Some of the authors of that defense policy have now written another book, called “The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyrrany and America’s Mission” by Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol. The introduction to this book can also be downloaded from the website of the Project for the New American Century. This book continues the promotion of similar policies, and reveals clearly that this War on Iraq is a part of a larger, strategic picture. It shows that control of Iraq, its citizens, government and resources is part of the projected picture of American domination of the world according to American ideals and American interests. And this book uses another buzzword of the Bush Doctrine, human “freedom” as a seemingly laudable goal of this set of policies.
The use of the word “freedom” has been repeated by George W. Bush since the very hour of the attacks on the World Trade Center, making one again wonder if those attacks were integrated into the Bush program. Bush said at that time, “Freedom itself came under attack today”. But no one in the media or the American public asked, “Which freedoms, Mr. President”?
We know that no nation in the earth, much leas an organization of a few thousand terrorists, such as Al Quaeda could take away American constitutional freedoms, such as the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to associate with persons of one’s choosing, the right to freedom from illegal search and seizure, and similar rights. Neither France, nor China, nor Osama bin Laden, nor Saddam Hussein, nor any other foreign figure has that kind of power and none of those nations or figures has ever threatened those American freedoms verbally. But George W. Bush and John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld and their clique can take away THOSE freedoms, and they have.
So, what freedoms did George W. Bush refer to as being under attack? These would include the non-constitutional freedoms such as the freedom to buy and sell, the freedom of America to dominate the world with impunity, the freedom of America’s government to influence, coerce, dominate, bully, and even change regimes and governments around the world according to American interests. The freedoms include freedom of America to dominate world commerce and control strategic resources.
Many Americans do not stand for unlimited “freedoms” of the American government or the American people to dominate the world in this way. Many Americans understand that the very notion of this sort of American “freedom” is repugnant, and would be rejected by our enemies and our allies as well. Many Americans understand that “freedom” for the Iraqi people means freedom from American or foreign domination as much as means freedom from tyranny by Saddam Hussein. Many Americans understand that freedom from tyranny around the world has NOT been a by-product of American self-interest policies in the past, and that in fact, American policies have often INFLICTED tyranny on world’s peoples by the establishment of pro-American dictatorships by covert and violent means around the world.
So, when we think of freedom, security, and the Pax Americana, we must understand that those words have an apparent meaning, but they also have a deep history and a real meaning. George W. Bush takes these concepts to extremes that are apparently displeasing to his own father, who is said to have spoken publicly against some of those policies. But George Sr. is and was no innocent in the propagation and expansion of American power and coercion around the world, as CIA chief, President, and in other functions as well.
Many peoples around the world yearn for freedom, and the freedom they yearn for is freedom FROM the Pax Americana. So do many Americans.
The writer is a member of several falconry and ornithological clubs and organizations. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from California, USA.
