Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

Yet for all the efforts, organization, indoctrination and reformation of power interests, the threat of democracy has remained a constant, seemingly embedded in the human consciousness, persistent and pervasive.

In his highly influential work, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, French social psychologist Gustav Le Bon suggested that middle class politics were transforming into popular democracy, where “the opinion of the masses” was the most important opinion in society. He wrote: “The destinies of nations are elaborated at present in the heart of the masses, and no longer in the councils of princes.” This was, of course, a deplorable change for elites, suggesting that, “[t]he divine right of the masses is about to replace the divine right of kings.” Le Bon suggested, however, that the “crowd” was not rational, but rather was driven by emotion and passion.

An associate and friend of Le Bon’s, Gabriel Tarde, expanded upon this concept, and articulated the idea that “the crowd” was a social group of the past, and that “the public” was “the social group of the future.” The public, argued Tarde, was a “spiritual collectivity, a dispersion of individuals who are physically separated and whose cohesion is entirely mental.” Thus, Tarde identified in the growth of the printing press and mass communications a powerful medium through which “the public” was shaped, and that, if managed appropriately, could bring a sense of order to a situation increasingly chaotic. The newspaper, Tarde explained, facilitated “the fusion of personal opinions into local opinions, and this into national and world opinion, the grandiose unification of the public mind.”

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern “democratic propaganda” in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

‘A Genuinely Democratic Propaganda’

World War I popularized the term “propaganda” and gave it negative connotations, as all major nations involved in the war effort employed new techniques of modern propaganda to mobilize their populations for war. In the United States, the effort was led by President Woodrow Wilson in the establishment of the Committee on Public Information (CPI) as a “vast propaganda ministry.” The central theme of the CPI was to promote U.S. entry into the war on the basis of seeking “to make a world that is safe for democracy.” This point was specifically developed by the leading intellectual of the era, Walter Lippmann, who by the age of 25 was referred to by President Theodore Roosevelt as “the most brilliant man of his age.” Lippmann was concerned primarily with the maintenance of the state-capitalist system in the face of increased unrest, resistance, and ideological opposition, feeling that the “discipline of science” would need to be applied to democracy, where social engineers and social scientists “would provide the modern state with a foundation upon which a new stability might be realized.” For this, Lippmann suggested the necessity of “intelligence and information control” in what he termed the “manufacture of consent.”

Important intellectuals of the era then became principally concerned with the issue of propaganda during peacetime, having witnessed its success in times of war. Propaganda, wrote Lippmann, “has a legitimate and desirable part to play in our democratic system.” A leading political scientist of the era, Harold Lasswell, noted: “Propaganda is surely here to stay.” In his 1925 book, The Phantom Public, Lippmann wrote that the public was a “bewildered herd” of “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders” who should be maintained as “interested spectators of action,” and distinct from the actors themselves, the powerful. Edward Bernays, the ‘father of public relations’ and nephew of Sigmund Freud got his start with Wilson’s CPI during World War I, and had since become a leading voice in the fields of propaganda and public relations. In his 1928 book, Propaganda, Bernays wrote: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” Modern society was dominated by a “relatively small number of persons… who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses,” and this was, in Bernays’ thinking, “a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.” Bernays referred to this – “borrowing” from Walter Lippmann – as the “engineering of consent.”

For the leading intellectuals and social engineers of the era, “propaganda” was presented as distinctly “democratic” and as a necessity to the proper functioning of society. John Marshall of the Rockefeller Foundation focused on what he called the “problem of propaganda” and sought to create, as he wrote in 1938, a “genuinely democratic propaganda.” Marshall pursued this objective through the Rockefeller Foundation, and specifically with the Princeton Radio Project in the late 1930s under the direction of Hadley Cantril and Frank Stanton, though including other intellectuals such as Paul Lazarsfeld and Harold Lasswell.

In 1936, Marshall wrote that the best way to expand the use of radio and film was for the Rockefeller Foundation to give “a few younger men with talent for these mediums an opportunity for relatively free experimentation… men interested primarily in education, literature, criticism, or in disseminating the findings of the social or natural sciences.”

In 1939, with the war in Europe under way, the Rockefeller Foundation had organized several conferences and published several papers on the issue of mass communication, directed by what was called the Communications Group, headed by Marshall and other Foundation officials, and with the participation of Lasswell, Lazarzfeld, Cantril, and several others. Early on, the Communications Group noted that with “an increasing degree of [government] control… in regard to all phases of communication, such as in the schools, the radio, the films, the press, and even eventually in all public discussion,” it was necessary to arrive at a consensus – among the “experts” – as to what role they should play as the state expands its authority over communication. Sociologist Robert Lynd took a page from Lippmann and wrote that a “goal” of experts in communication should “be that of persuading the people that there are many issues too complicated for them to decide, which should be left to experts.” One other participant commented on Lynd’s suggestion: “Mr. Lynd feels we need a restructuring of democratic action in terms of the capacity of different groups of the population and an abandonment of the American idea of the responsibility and capacity of the man on the street.” In 1940, John Marshall wrote:

In a period of emergency such as I believe we now face, the manipulation of public opinion to meet emergency needs has to be taken for granted. In such a period, those in control must shape public opinion to support courses of action which the emergency necessitates… No one, I think, can blame them for that impulse.

In a 1940 memo for the Communications Group, Marshall wrote that, “We believe… that for leadership to secure that consent will require unprecedented knowledge of the public mind and of the means by which leadership can secure consent… We believe… that we gave available today methods of research which can reliably inform us about the public mind and how it is being, or can be, influenced in relation to public affairs.” The memo concerned some officials at the Rockefeller Foundation, noting that it could be misinterpreted and that such research should be careful about becoming a mere tool of the state, with one official noting: “Public opinion and vested interests are… violently opposed to such a development which would be labeled as fascist or authoritarian.” Another official suggested that the memo “looks to me like something that [Nazi propaganda chief] Herr Goebbels could put out with complete sincerity.” While one Foundation official referred to the memo as resembling “the methods by which democracy has been destroyed,” he added that, “finding out regularly and completely what the mass of the people feel and believe and think about things and policies is a necessary part of the modern democratic process.” Marshall and the Communications Group refined their approach from a more overt authoritarianism of “one-way” communication between the state and the population, to a more Lippmann-centered concept of “manufacturing consent” and what has been referred to as “democratic elitism.” In the final report of the Communications Group in 1940, it was noted that two-way communication between the government and population was essential, as without it, “democracy is endangered,” and that it was required for the population to give “consent.”

Frank Stanton, along with Hadley Cantril, was one of the co-directors of the Princeton Project since its inception. As Michael J. Socolow wrote in theJournal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Frank Stanton had “devoted much of his life to understanding the cultural, social, and psychological effects of the mass media.” Stanton was the president of CBS from 1946 until 1973, during which he “proved to be an effective corporate strategist” and “a skillful political operator,” not least of all because he “collaborated closely with the U.S. government, performing propaganda tasks during the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War.”

Stanton’s first job was in the advertising industry, beginning in 1929 and cut short by the market crash, though Stanton maintained that advertising “was the greatest thing since sliced bread.” In school, Stanton studied business administration and psychology, being particularly influenced by John B. Watson, the developer of behaviorism, who himself went to go work for an advertising agency. Throughout his own life and career, Stanton viewed himself as “a behaviorist, a social scientist valuing the application of psychological technique across a variety of human endeavors.”

Behaviorism was a brand of psychology which emerged in response to the development of the field by social scientists seeking to make “scientific” what was previously the realm of philosophy and spirituality, drawing in political scientists, economists, sociologists, and others. The field of psychology had become more prominent following World War I, after having proved its worth to power interests in mobilizing, manipulating, and studying populations and their perceptions. In 1929, the president of Yale, James Agnell, announced the creation of the Yale Institute of Human Relations (IHR), with a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Agnell explained that the IHR was “directly concerned with the problems of man’s individual and group conduct,” out of which the purpose was “to correlate knowledge and coordinate technique in related fields that greater progress may be made in the understanding of human life.”

The IHR helped facilitate the rise of behaviorism in psychology, as in the 1920s and 30s, social unrest was a growing problem, and so psychologists attempted to promote themselves and their field as a possible solution to these problems, as a “scientific psychology” – or “social psychology” – could “be instrumental for attaining democratic social order and control.” Such a theory was based upon the view that the individual was not well “adjusted” to a rapidly changing environment, and therefore, with the help of psychology, the individual could be “adjusted” successfully. Of course, the notion that there is something inherently problematic with society and the social order (and the hierarchy upon which it was built) went unquestioned. In other words, it was not society which needed to “adjust” to individuals and the population, but rather the opposite. Psychologists and Yale’s Institute of Human Relations would promote themselves as the solution to this complex problem. Behaviorism was thus concerned with environmental and behavior control in human relations. This influenced not only Frank Stanton, but other key officials who were involved in the Princeton Radio Project, including Paul Lazarsfeld.

Frank Stanton eventually got a job at CBS following some research he had done on radio audiences and had sent to CBS headquarters. In 1935, Stanton was the third employee hired by CBS for the research division, concerned largely with the ability of advertisers to sell to radio listeners. As Stanton explained in 1936, the contribution of psychology to radio research “should be largely one of technique,” adding: “It isn’t enough to know what programs are heard and preferred. We want to know why they are listened to and liked, and furthermore, we want to quantify influence.” Weeks later, Stanton – with the suggestion of Hadley Cantril – wrote a draft memo of a research proposal for the Rockefeller Foundation, out of which would come to Office of Radio Research at Princeton.

The Princeton Radio Project, established with Rockefeller funding and directed by Paul Lazarsfeld, Cantril, and Stanton, focused on studying the uses and effects of radio communications upon the population, and almost exclusively led to the field of mass communications research. Theodor Adorno, a critical theorist whom Lazarsfeld invited to join the Princeton Radio Project ran into several problems during his research with his associates. Lazarsfeld brought Adorno into the project hoping that he could bridge the gap between American and European approaches to research. Adorno, however, sought to understand not simply the effects of radio in mass communications, but the role played by the “researcher” – or “expert” – in the social order itself. This put him in direct conflict with the project and its philosophy. For Adorno, wrote Slack and Allor, “not only the processes of communication but the practice of communication research itself had to be viewed critically.” Reflecting upon his experience some decades later, Adorno wrote that, “there appeared to be little room for such social research in the framework of the Princeton Project.” He noted: “Its charter, which came from the Rockefeller Foundation, expressly stipulated that the investigations must be performed within the limits of the commercial radio system prevailing in the United States.” Thus, “the system itself, its cultural and sociological consequences and its social and economic presuppositions were not to be analyzed… I was disturbed.”

Shortly after World War II and into the 1950s, the U.S. State Department became increasingly interested in the subject of propaganda, or what was termed “information management” and “public diplomacy.” Television was of particular interest in promoting American state interests, specifically those defined by the Cold War. Francis Russell, the director of the State Department’s Public Affairs (PA) division from 1945 to 1953, noted that “propaganda abroad is indispensable” in the Cold War, but that the State Department had “diligently cultivated the concept of PA as a service to the American people, a place where the public can come to obtain information.” He explained his worry that, “if the American people ever get the idea that the same high-powered propaganda machine” used abroad was “also at work on them, the result will be disaster fir both the domestic and overseas programs.” The role of the PA was not in a censorship bureau, but as a dispenser of “information,” to which the media – largely privately owned – would use as a consistent source for reporting, re-printing press releases, and seeking official sources for comment. Edward Barrett, another top official in the PA division, later noted: “We really tried to stick to the truth and tell nothing but the truth, but we didn’t always tell the whole truth.”

Nancy Bernhard, writing in the journal Diplomatic History, explained this contradiction aptly: “While Americans defended commercial broadcasting because it was free from Communistic government control, commercial broadcasters voluntarily collaborated with the government information services in the name of anticommunism. “Free” broadcasters volunteered as a virtually official information agency.” It was no surprise, then, that government “information programs” used the specific talents of corporate tycoons in the media world, bringing in talent from networks, advertising agencies, public relations agencies, and marketing bureaus. The State Department established a number of “advisory boards” to monitor its “public affairs” operations, largely made up of industry and corporate officials. Among the influential board members was Frank Stanton.

When Eisenhower came to power, a new agency was created to handle information and cultural programs previously undertaken by the State Department, the US Information Agency (USIA), established in 1953. In attempting to create a terminology to describe the activities of the USIA and its relationship to foreign policy goals – without using the obvious term “propaganda” – the term “public diplomacy” was commonly used. Frank Stanton, who left CBS in 1973, subsequently chaired a research report by the prominent American think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in 1975, entitled, International Information Education and Cultural Relations – Recommendations for the Future. The report recommended “that the international information and cultural programs [of the U.S. government] deserve all possible support in the years ahead, that they have demonstrated their success and are therefore an exceptional investment of government energy and the taxpayer’s dollar.”

While head of CBS, Stanton developed relationships with American presidents, whose Cold War strategies he would help promote through his network. When Kennedy became president, he offered Frank Stanton the job as head of the United States Information Agency (USIA), which Stanton declined (though recommended the appointment of Edward R. Murrow, a prominent journalist with CBS, whom Stanton had no lack of problems with). In fact, in 1958, Edward R. Murrow delivered a speech before the Radio-Television News Directors Association in which he “implicitly indicted Stanton” for the way in which he managed CBS, stating: “The top management of the networks… has been trained in advertising, research, or show business… by the nature of the corporate structure, [these managers] also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this.”

Stanton developed a reputation as a trustworthy propagandist for the Cold War, but was not unwilling to flex his own power when confronted with state power, such as when President Lyndon Johnson, angry at specific coverage of Vietnam on CBS, called up Stanton and stated, “Frank, are you trying to fuck your country?” Stanton refused to budge on his coverage under pressure from the president. Yet still, he remained a propagandist, and even participated in the CIA’s program to infiltrate the domestic media, with general knowledge of the Agency’s program with CBS, though according to one CIA agent involved in the matter, he didn’t “want to know the fine points.”

Stanton, however, was ultimately a corporation man. Not only did he help in the development of the government’s official propaganda systems, but he was a key figure in the promotion of the “corporatization” of news and information. Thus, for Stanton, “information management” was not simply to be done in the interests of the state, but also – and arguably primarily – in the interests of corporations. In Stanton’s own words, “since we are advertiser supported we must take into account the general objectives and desires of advertisers as a whole.” Stanton was not the only executive to voice such views, as one executive at NBC as early as 1940, declared, “we should make money on our news.”

The ‘Social Control’ Society: A Background to ‘Democratic Propaganda’

One of the primary institutions of social control is the educational system. For primary and secondary educational institutions, the original objective was to foster a strong sense of national identity, bringing a cohesive world view to the development of a national citizenry, and thus, to establish a system of social control. For university education, the original and evolving intend had been to develop an elite capable of managing society, and thus, to produce the controllers and technicians of society, itself. As the modern university underwent a major transformation in late 19th century America, it sought to apply the potential of the “sciences” to the social world, and thus, in a society undergoing rapid industrialization, urbanization, poverty, immigration, labour unrest, and new forms of communication, the “social sciences” were developed with an objective of producing social engineers and technicians for a new society of “social control.”

The major industrial and financial elites had a direct role to play in the transformation of this educational system, and a substantial interest in the ideologies which would emerge from them. As Andrew Carnegie wrote in 1889, at the top of the list of “charitable deeds” to undertake was “the founding of a university by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any country.” It was in this context, of robber barons seeking to remake education, that we see the founding of several of America’s top universities, many of which were named after their robber baron founders, such as Stanford (after Leland Stanford), Cornell (after Ezra Cornell), and Johns Hopkins, who owned the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

This new class of industrialists, who emerged out of the Civil War in America, “challenged the position of the old propertied, pre-industrial elite. This struggle crystallized in particular around the reform of the educational system that had legitimated the old elite’s domination.” The modern university was born out of this struggle between elites, with the old educational system based upon religious and moral values, “and the making of gentlemen,” while the “new education” focused on “the importance of management or administration” as well as “public service, [and] the advancement of knowledge through original investigation.”

John D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago in 1891, and the President of the University, “initiated a new disciplinary system, which was enormously influential.” Ultimately, it “led to the formation of the department structure of the American university, which was internationally unique,” and was later exported around the world “with the help of American foundations.” This disciplinary system consisted of separating politics from economics (rejecting the notion of “political economy” and its “ideologies”), as ideology was “deemed unscientific and inappropriate in social sciences and political scientists have increasingly seen their function as service to the powerful, rather than providing leadership to populist or socialist movements.”

Nicolas Guilhot wrote in the journal Critical Sociology that since “social reform was inevitable,” these industrialists “chose to invest in the definition and scientific treatment of the ‘social questions’ of their time,” and subsequently, they “promoted reformist solutions that did not threaten the capitalistic nature of the social order,” and instead constructed a “private alternative to socialism.” Social control was not simply seen as the means through which a society – as it exists – could be maintained, but more often sought to preserve elements of that society (such as its hierarchical structure, the position of the elites) through periods of profound social change. In this sense, the question was “whether the processes of social control are able to maintain the social order [hierarchy] while transformation and social change take place.”

The United States was viewed “as the laboratory for the study of transitional society in the framework of a rapidly changing social structure,” and therefore, at a time when sociology was being established as an intellectual and academic discipline, “the United States could be viewed as a microcosm of social change and disorder.” The sociologist Edward A. Ross was the first to popularize the concept of social control in the American Journal of Sociology in 1896 and 1898, and later in his 1901 book, Social Control. Ross “viewed individuals as objects of society’s domination,” and suggested that society had to establish order “by channeling the behavior of its members into orderly relations.” Ross, largely influenced by Gabriel Tarde, did not believe that individuals were rational, but rather, that they would need to be “controlled” in one fashion or another. As some sociologists lamented in the 1920s, “all social problems turn out finally to be problems of social control,” and “the study of society was the study of social control.”

Sociology largely emerged from the University of Chicago (founded by John D. Rockefeller), with the world’s first department of sociology founded in 1892. The sociologists who rose within and out of the University of Chicago made up what was known as the “Chicago School of Sociology.” The school developed the most influential sociologists in the nation, including George Herbert Mead and W.I. Thomas, two scholars who had profound influence on the development of the concept of “social control,” and sociologists became “reform-oriented liberals, not radical revolutionaries or conservative cynics.”

The American Journal of Sociology was founded out of the University of Chicago by Albion Small, who was the head professor of the department of sociology, and became the editor of the journal for thirty years from 1895-1925. Between 1915 and 1940, the University of Chicago was the dominant force in sociology in the United States, and “the dominance of the Sociology Department was representative of the social sciences at Chicago during that period.” The school was largely made the center of not only sociology, but many areas of the social sciences, due to funding from outside sources, namely the major philanthropic foundations created by the Robber Baron industrialists in the early 20th century. The foundations became, in effect, engines of social engineering and perhaps the most effective institutions in the application of social control in modern society.

The Foundations of Social Control

The new industrial elite accumulated millions and even hundreds of millions by the end of the 19th century: Andrew Carnegie was worth roughly $300 million after he sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901, and by 1913, John D. Rockefeller was estimated to have a personal worth of $900 million. In the late 1880s, Rockefeller met Frederick T. Gates, a minister, educator, and administrator in the Baptist Church when they were negotiating the founding of a new university, which resulted with a pledge of $600,000 from Rockefeller to found the University of Chicago in 1889. At this time, Rockefeller hired Gates as his associate in charge of Rockefeller’s philanthropic ventures. Gates became central in inculcating the notion of “scientific benevolence” within Rockefeller’s philanthropies. As Gates wrote in his autobiography, “I gradually developed and introduced in all his charities the principle of scientific giving.” Gates advised Rockefeller to form a series of “self-perpetuating” philanthropies.

The circumstances in which the Rockefeller Foundation emerged are notable. In 1913, a coal strike began at a Colorado mine owned by the Rockefellers in the small mining town of Ludlow, where roughly 11,000 workers (mostly Greek, Italian, and Serbian immigrants) went on strike against the “feudal domination of their lives in towns completely controlled by the mining companies.” Repression quickly followed, culminating in what became known as the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, with the Rockefellers hiring the National Guard to attack the strikers and destroy their tent city, machine gunning the crowd and setting fire to tents, one of which was discovered to have housed eleven children and two women, all of whom were killed by the fire.

The Congressional Walsh Commission was founded to investigate the activities which led to violent labour repression at the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company in Ludlow, though the scope of the Commission was expanded to study philanthropic foundations themselves. The Commission’s founder, Frank P. Walsh, explained:

…the creation of the Rockefeller and other foundations was the beginning of an effort to perpetuate the present position of predatory wealth through the corruption of sources of public information… [and] that if not checked by legislation, these foundations will be used as instruments to change to form of government of the U.S. at a future date, and there is even a hint that there is a fear of a monarchy.

In 1916, the Walsh Commission produced its final report, the Manly Report (after the research director, Basil M. Manly), which concluded that the foundations were so “grave a menace” to society, that “it would be desirable to recommend their abolition.” Frank Walsh referred to foundations as “a menace to the welfare of society.”

As the Walsh Commission began their work, the Rockefeller Foundation sought to join forces with other major corporate leaders to advance their formation of ideology, and attended a conference “held between representatives of some of the largest financial interests” in the United States. This conference resulted in two approaches being pushed forward in terms of seeking to “educate the citizenry in procapitalistic ideology and thus relieve unrest.” One view was the interpretation that the public was provided with “poor quality of facts and interpretation available on social and economic issues.” Thus, they felt there was a need for a “publicity bureau” to provide a “constant stream of correct information” targeted at the lower and middle classes. The Rockefeller Foundation agreed that a publicity bureau was a good strategy, but added that what was also needed was “a permanent research organization to manufacture knowledge on these subjects.” A publicity bureau would “correct popular misinformation,” while a research organization would study the “causes of social and economic evils,” though of course avoiding problematic considerations of institutional analysis or radical critiques. They were instead to focus on “disinterested” and “detached” studies of social problems, portraying themselves as scientists and technicians for society, focused on reform and social control.

Rockefeller interests quickly undertook both strategies. While the Foundation was engaged in the manufacture of ideology (which specifically states that it is “non-ideological,” meaning that it supports power), the corporate arm of the Rockefeller empire hired the first public relations man, Ivy Lee, a Progressive era journalist. The Foundation hired the Canadian labour expert, William Lyon Mackenzie King (who would later become Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister) to manage “labour relations,” promoting “company unions” over “autonomous unions,” thus undermining the freedom of labour to organize and oppose the social order as a whole, bringing them firmly within the corporate-state ideology and institutions.

Ivy Lee, for his part, attempted to undertake “damage control” for the Rockefellers, who were widely despised at the time, acting as a PR man, disseminating communiqués to media and educators attempting “to cultivate middle-class allies.” His efforts at stemming animosity toward the Rockefellers following Ludlow failed, but for years he continued to present “the human side of the Rockefellers,” earning him the rather unfavourable nickname “Poison Ivy.”

While Lee’s specific efforts were unsuccessful, the ideas behind them continued to grow and evolve. Two major social engineering projects were underway: one, the manufacture of ideology, largely the initiative of philanthropic foundations (and the social sciences), and the other, public relations as a modern form of propaganda. Both of these social engineering projects were designed to ensure social control through social engineering, and both were to have a profound impact upon both the definition and function of modern “democracies.”

Through the educational system, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations, advertising, marketing, and the media, America and the industrialized states of the world developed a unique and complex system of social control and propaganda for the 20th century and into the 21st. It is imperative to recognize and understand this complex system if we are to challenge and change it.

So, who runs the world? It's a question that people have struggled with since people began to struggle. It's certainly a question with many interpretations, and incites answers of many varied perspectives.

Often, it is relegated to the realm of u201Cconspiracy theory,u201D in that, those who discuss this question or propose answers to it, are purveyors of a conspiratorial view of the world. However, it is my intention to discard the labels, which seek to disprove a position without actually proving anything to the contrary. One of these labels — u201Cconspiracy theoristu201D — does just that: it's very application to a particular perspective or viewpoint has the intention of u201Cdisproving without proof;u201D all that is needed is to simply apply the label.

What I intend to do is analyse the social structure of the transnational ruling class, the international elite, who together run the world. This is not a conspiratorial opinion piece, but is an examination of the socially constructed elite class of people; what is the nature of power, how does it get used, and who holds it?

A Historical Understanding of Power

In answering the question u201CWho Runs the World?u201D we must understand what positions within society hold the most power, and thus, the answer becomes clear. If we simply understand this as heads of state, the answer will be flawed and inaccurate. We must examine the globe as a whole, and the power structures of the global political economy.

The greatest position of power within the global capitalist system lies in the authority of money-creation: the central banking system. The central banking system, originating in 1694 in England, consists of an international network of central banks that are privately owned by wealthy shareholders and are granted governmental authority to print and issue a nation's currency, and set interest rates, collecting revenue and making profit through the interest charged. Central banks give loans to both governments and industries, controlling both simultaneously. The ultimate centre of power in the central banking system is at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basle, Switzerland; which is the central bank to the world's central banks, and is also a private bank owned by the world's central banks.

As Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley wrote:

[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations.1

The central banks, and thus the central banking system as a whole, is a privately owned system in which the major shareholders are powerful international banking houses. These international banking houses emerged in tandem with the evolution of the central banking system. The central banking system first emerged in London, and expanded across Europe with time. With that expansion, the European banking houses also rose and expanded across the continent.

The French Revolution resulted with Napoleon coming to power, who granted the French bankers a central bank of France, which they privately controlled.2 It was also out of the French Revolution that one of the major banking houses of the world emerged, the Rothschilds. Emerging out of a European Jewish ghetto, the Rothschilds quickly rose to the forefront in banking, and established banking houses in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna and Naples, allowing them to profit off of all sides in the Napoleonic wars.3

As Carroll Quigley wrote in his monumental Tragedy and Hope, u201CThe merchant bankers of London had already at hand in 1810-1850 the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, and the London money market,u201D and that:

In time they brought into their financial network the provincial banking centres, organised as commercial banks and savings banks, as well as insurance companies, to form all of these into a single financial system on an international scale which manipulated the quantity and flow of money so that they were able to influence, if not control, governments on one side and industries on the other.4

At the same time, in the United States, we saw the emergence of a powerful group of bankers and industrialists, such as the Morgans, Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Carnegies, and they created massive industrial monopolies and oligopolies throughout the 19th century.5 These banking interests were very close to and allied with the powerful European banking houses.

The European, and particularly the British elites of the time, were beginning to organise their power in an effort to properly exert their influence internationally. At this time, European empires were engaging in the Scramble for Africa, in which nearly the entire continent of Africa, save Ethiopia, was colonised and carved up by European nations. One notable imperialist was Cecil Rhodes who made his fortune from diamond and gold mining in Africa with financial support from the Rothschilds,6 and u201Cat that time [had] the biggest concentration of financial capital in the world.u201D7

Cecil Rhodes was also known for his radical views regarding America, particularly in that he would u201Ctalk with total seriousness of u2018the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire'.u201D8 Rhodes saw himself not simply as a moneymaker, but primarily as an u201Cempire builder.u201D

As Carroll Quigley explained, in 1891 three British elites met with the intent to create a secret society. The three men were Cecil Rhodes, William T. Stead, a prominent journalist of the day, and Reginald Baliol Brett, a u201Cfriend and confidant of Queen Victoria, and later to be the most influential adviser of King Edward VII and King George V.u201D Within this secret society, u201Creal power was to be exercised by the leader, and a u2018Junta of Three.' The leader was to be Rhodes, and the Junta was to be Stead, Brett, and Alfred Milner.u201D9

The purpose of this secret society, which was later headed by Alfred Milner, was: u201CThe extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise… [with] the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of a British Empire.u201D [Emphasis added]10 Essentially, it outlined a British-led cosmopolitical world order, one global system of governance under British hegemony. Among key players within this group were the Rothschilds and other banking interests.11

After the 1907 banking panic in the US, instigated by JP Morgan, pressure was placed upon the American political establishment to create a u201Cstableu201D banking system. In 1910, a secret meeting of financiers was held on Jekyll Island, where they planned for the u201Ccreation of a National Reserve Association with fifteen major regions, controlled by a board of commercial bankers but empowered by the federal government to act like a central bank — creating money and lending reserves to private banks.u201D12

It was largely Paul M. Warburg, a Wall Street investment banker, who u201Chad come up with a design for a single central bank [in 1910]. He called it the United Reserve Bank. From this and his later service on the first Federal Reserve Board, Warburg has, with some justice, been called the father of the System.u201D13 President Woodrow Wilson followed the plan almost exactly as outlined by the Wall Street financiers, and added to it the creation of a Federal Reserve Board in Washington, which the President would appoint.14

Thus, true power in the world order was held by international banking houses, which privately owned the global central banking system, allowing them to control the credit of nations, and finance and control governments and industry.

However, though the economic system was firmly in their control, allowing them to establish influence over finance, they needed to shape elite ideology accordingly. In effect, what was required was to socially construct a ruling class, internationally, which would serve their interests. To do this, these bankers set out to undertake a project of establishing think tanks to organise elites from politics, economics, academia, media, and the military into a generally cohesive and controllable ideology.

Constructing a Ruling Class: Rise of the Think Tanks

During World War I, a group of American scholars were tasked with briefing u201CWoodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world once the Kaiser and imperial Germany fell to defeat.u201D This group was called, u201CThe Inquiry.u201D The group advised Wilson mostly through his trusted aide, Col. Edward M. House, who was Wilson's u201Cunofficial envoy to Europe during the period between the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the intervention by the United States in 1917,u201D and was the prime driving force in the Wilson administration behind the establishment of the Federal Reserve System.15

u201CThe Inquiryu201D laid the foundations for the creation of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most powerful think tank in the US and, u201CThe scholars of the Inquiry helped draw the borders of post World War I central Europe.u201D On May 30, 1919, a group of scholars and diplomats from Britain and the US met at the Hotel Majestic, where they u201Cproposed a permanent Anglo-American Institute of International Affairs, with one branch in London, the other in New York.u201D When the scholars returned from Paris, they were met with open arms by New York lawyers and financiers, and together they formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. The u201CBritish diplomats returning from Paris had made great headway in founding their Royal Institute of International Affairs.u201D The Anglo-American Institute envisioned in Paris, with two branches and combined membership was not feasible, so both the British and American branches retained national membership, however, they would cooperate closely with one another.16 They were referred to, and still are, as u201CSister Institutes.u201D17

The Milner Group, the secret society formed by Cecil Rhodes, u201Cdominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the formation and management of the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it.u201D18

There were other groups founded in many countries representing the same interests of the secret Milner Group, and they came to be known as the Round Table Groups, preeminent among them were the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, and parallel groups were set up in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.19

These were, in effect, the first international think tanks, which remain today, and are in their respective nations, among the top, if not the most prominent think tanks.

In 2008, a major study was done by the University of Philadelphia's International Relations Program — the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program — which sought to analyse and examine the most powerful and influential think tanks in the world. While it is a useful resource to understanding the influence of think tanks, there is a flaw in its analysis. It failed to take into account the international origins of the Round Table Group think tanks, particularly the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States; Chatham House or the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London; the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, now renamed the Canadian International Council; and their respective sister organisations in India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Further nations have since added to this group of related think tanks, including Germany, and a recently established European Council on Foreign Relations. The report, while putting focus on the international nature of think tanks, analysed these ones as separate institutions without being related or affiliated. This has, in effect, skewed the results of the study. However, it is still useful to examine.

The top think tanks in the United States include the Council on Foreign Relations, (which was put at number 2, however, should be placed at the number 1 spot), the Brookings Institution, (which was inaccurately given the position of number one), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND Corporation, Heritage Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the American Enterprise Institute, among others.

The top think tanks in the world, outside of the United States, are Chatham House (sitting at number one), the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK, the German Council on Foreign Relations, the French Institute of International Relations, the Adam Smith Institute in the UK, the Fraser Institute in Canada, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group in Belgium, and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.20

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was founded in the Netherlands. Every year since then the group holds a secretive meeting, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as u201Can informal network of influential people who could consult each other privately and confidentially.u201D21

Regular participants include the CEOs or Chairmen of some of the largest corporations in the world, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and Total SA, as well as various European monarchs, international bankers such as David Rockefeller, major politicians, presidents, prime ministers, and central bankers of the world.22 The Bilderberg Group acts as a u201Csecretive global think-tank,u201D with an original intent u201Cto link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War.u201D23

In 1970, David Rockefeller became Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, while also being Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan. In 1970, an academic who joined the Council on Foreign Relations in 1965 wrote a book called Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era. The author, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called for the formation of u201CA Community of the Developed Nations,u201D consisting of Western Europe, the United States and Japan. Brzezinski wrote about how u201Cthe traditional sovereignty of nation states is becoming increasingly unglued as transnational forces such as multinational corporations, banks, and international organisations play a larger and larger role in shaping global politics.u201D

So, in 1972, David Rockefeller and Brzezinski u201Cpresented the idea of a trilateral grouping at the annual Bilderberg meeting.u201D In July of 1972, seventeen powerful people met at David Rockefeller's estate in New York to plan for the creation of another grouping. Also at the meeting was Brzezinski, McGeorge Bundy, the President of the Ford Foundation, (brother of William Bundy, editor of Foreign Affairs) and Bayless Manning, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.24 In 1973, these people formed the Trilateral Commission, which acted as a sister organisation to Bilderberg, linking the elites of Western Europe, North America, and Japan into a transnational ruling class.

These think tanks have effectively socially constructed an ideologically cohesive ruling class in each nation and fostered the expansion of international ideological alignment among national elites, allowing for the development of a transnational ruling class sharing a dominant ideology.

These same interests, controlled by the international banking houses, had to socially construct society itself. To do this, they created a massive network of tax-exempt foundations and non-profit organisations, which shaped civil society according to their designs. Among the most prominent of these are the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The u201CFoundationsu201D of Civil Society

These foundations shaped civil society by financing research projects and initiatives into major social projects, creating both a dominant world-view for the elite classes, as well as managing the other classes.

These foundations, since their establishment, played a large part in the funding and organising of the eugenics movement, which helped facilitate this racist, elitist ideology to having enormous growth and influence, ultimately culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. From then, the word u201Ceugenicsu201D had to be dropped from the ideology and philanthropy of elites, and was replaced with new forms of eugenics policies and concepts. Among them, genetics, population control and environmentalism.

These foundations also funded seemingly progressive and alternative media sources in an effort to control the opposition, and manage the resistance to their world order, essentially making it ineffective and misguided.

The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1912, and immediately began giving money to eugenics research organisations.25 Eugenics was a pseudo-scientific and social science movement that emerged in the late 19th century, and gained significant traction in the first half of the 20th century. One of the founding ideologues of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, an anthropologist and cousin to Charles Darwin, wrote that eugenics u201Cis the study of all agencies under social control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations.u201D26 Ultimately, it was about the u201Csoundu201D breeding of people and maintaining u201Cpurityu201D and u201Csuperiorityu201D of the blood. It was an inherently racist ideology, which saw all non-white racial categories of people as inherently and naturally inferior, and sought to ground these racist theories in u201Cscience.u201D

The vast wealth and fortunes of the major industrialists and bankers in the United States flowed heavily into the eugenics organisations, promoting and expanding this racist and elitist ideology. Money from the Harriman railroad fortune, with millions given by the Rockefeller and Carnegie family fortunes were subsequently u201Cdevoted to sterilisation of several hundred thousands of American u2018defectives' annually, as a matter of eugenics.u201D27

In the United States, 27 states passed eugenics based sterilisation laws of the u201Cunfit,u201D which ultimately led to the sterilisation of over 60,000 people. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the Carnegie and especially the Rockefeller Foundation, funded eugenics research in Germany, directly financing the Nazi scientists who perpetrated some of the greatest crimes of the Holocaust.28

Following the Holocaust, the word u201Ceugenicsu201D was highly discredited. Thus, these elites who wanted to continue with the implementation of their racist and elitist ideology desperately needed a new name for it. In 1939, the Eugenics Records Office became known as the Genetics Record Office.29 However, tens of thousands of Americans continued to be sterilised throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s, the majority of which were women.30

Edwin Black analysed how the pseudoscience of eugenics transformed into what we know as the science of genetics. In a 1943 edition of Eugenical News, an article titled u201CEugenics After the War,u201D cited Charles Davenport, a major founder of eugenics, in his vision of u201Ca new mankind of biological castes with master races in control and slave races serving them.u201D31

A 1946 article in Eugenical News stated that, u201CPopulation, genetics, [and] psychology, are the three sciences to which the eugenicist must look for the factual material on which to build an acceptable philosophy of eugenics and to develop and defend practical eugenics proposals.u201D As Black explained, u201Cthe incremental effort to transform eugenics into human genetics forged an entire worldwide infrastructure,u201D with the founding of the Institute for Human Genetics in Copenhagen in 1938, led by Tage Kemp, a Rockefeller Foundation eugenicist, and was financed with money from the Rockefeller Foundation.32

Today, much of civil society and major social projects are a product of these foundations, and align with various new forms of eugenics. The areas of population control and environmentalism are closely aligned and span a broad range of intellectual avenues. The major population control organisations emerged with funding from these various foundations, particularly the Rockefeller foundations and philanthropies.

These organisations, such as the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funded major civil society movements, such as the Civil Rights movement, in an effort to u201Ccreate a wedge between social movement activists and their unpaid grassroots constituents, thereby facilitating professionalisation and institutionalisation within the movement,u201D ultimately facilitating a u201Cnarrowing and taming of the potential for broad dissent,u201D with an aim of limiting goals to u201Cameliorative rather than radical change.u201D33

Two major organisations in the development of the environmental movement were the Conservation Foundation and Resources for the Future, which were founded and funded with money from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and helped u201Claunch an explicitly pro-corporate approach to resource conservation.u201D34 Even the World Wildlife Fund was founded in the early 1960s by the former president of the British Eugenics Society, and its first President was Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a founding member of the Bilderberg Group.

While the environmental movement positions people as the major problem for the earth, relating humanity to a cancer, population control becomes a significant factor in proposing environmental solutions.

In May of 2009, a secret meeting of billionaire philanthropists took place in which they sought to coordinate how to u201Caddressu201D the world's environmental, social, and industrial threats. Each billionaire at the meeting was given 15 minutes to discuss their u201Cpreferredu201D cause, and then they deliberated to create an u201Cumbrellau201D cause to harness all their interests. The end result was that the umbrella cause for which the billionaires would aim to u201Cgive tou201D was population control, which u201Cwould be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.u201D Among those present at the meeting were David Rockefeller, Jr., George Soros, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and even Oprah Winfrey.35

Conclusion

At the top of the list of those who run the world, we have the major international banking houses, which control the global central banking system. From there, these dynastic banking families created an international network of think tanks, which socialised the ruling elites of each nation and the international community as a whole, into a cohesive transnational elite class. The foundations they established helped shape civil society both nationally and internationally, playing a major part in the funding — and thus coordinating and co-opting — of major social-political movements.

An excellent example of one member of the top of the hierarchy of the global elite is David Rockefeller, patriarch of the Rockefeller family. Long serving as Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan bank, he revolutionised the notion of building a truly global bank. He was also Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission, heavily involved in the family philanthropies, and sits atop a vast number of boards and foundations. Even Alan Greenspan, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, said that David Rockefeller and the CFR have, u201Cin many respects, formulated the foreign policy of this country.u201D36

In another speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, then World Bank President James Wolfesohn, said in 2005, in honour of David Rockefeller's 90th birthday, that, u201Cthe person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally in this country, and I'm very happy to say personally there afterwards, is David Rockefeller.u201D He then said, u201CIn fact, it's fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller's in the whole issue of globalisation and in the whole issue of addressing the questions which, in some ways, are still before us today. And for that David, we're deeply grateful to you and for your own contribution in carrying these forward in the way that you did.u201D37

David Rockefeller, himself, wrote, u201CFor more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicised incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as u2018internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.u201D38

Footnotes

1. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, New York: Macmillan Company, 1966, 324

2. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 515; Robert Elgie and Helen Thompson, ed., The Politics of Central Banks, New York: Routledge, 1998, 97-98

3. Sylvia Nasar, u2018Masters of the Universe', The New York Times: January 23, 2000; u2018The Family That Bankrolled Europe', BBC News: July 9, 1999.

4. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 51

5. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, Harper Perennial: New York, 2003, 323

6. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 130

7. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, New York: Basic Books, 2004, 186

8. Ibid, 190

9. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, GSG & Associates, 1981, 3

10. Ibid, 33

11. Ibid, 34

12. William Greider, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 276

13. John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1975, 121-122

14. William Greider, op.cit., 277

15. H.W. Brands, u2018He Is My Independent Self', The Washington Post: June 11, 2006.

16. CFR, u2018Continuing the Inquiry. History of CFR'.

17. Chatham House, u2018CHATHAM HOUSE (The Royal Institute of International Affairs): Background', Chatham House History.

18. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, op.cit., 5

19. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, op.cit., 132-133

20. James G. McGann, Ph.D., The Global u201CGo-To Think Tanksu201D: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World, The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program: University of Pennsylvania, International Relations Program, 2008, 26-28

21. CBC, u2018Informal forum or global conspiracy?', CBC News Online: June 13, 2006.

22. Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management, South End Press: 1980, 161-171

23. Glen McGregor, u2018Secretive power brokers meeting coming to Ottawa?', Ottawa Citizen: May 24, 2006

24. Holly Sklar, ed., op.cit., 76-78

25. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York: Thunders's Mouth Press, 2004, 93

26. Ibid, 18

27. Ibid, 101-102

28. Edwin Black, u2018Eugenics and the Nazis — the California connection', The San Francisco Chronicle: November 9, 2003

29. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, op.cit., 396

30. Ibid, 398

31. Ibid, 416

32. Ibid, 418

33. Michael Barker, The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection, Capitalism Nature Socialism: 19, (2), June 2008, 18

34. Ibid, 19-20

35. John Harlow, u2018Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation', Times Online: May 24, 2009

36. CFR, Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations Annual Corporate Conference, Transcripts: March 10, 2005.

37. CFR, Council on Foreign Relations Special Symposium in honor of David Rockefeller's 90th Birthday, Transcript: May 23, 2005.

38. David Rockefeller, Memoirs, New York: Random House: 2002, 405

Reprinted with permission from New Dawn Magazine.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project. Visit his website.

NOTE: The following article is the documented transcript from the second episode of a new podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People with Andrew Gavin Marshall,” hosted by BoilingFrogsPost.com. The information within the article is an extracted sample from a book being written and funded through The People’s Book Project. Listen to the podcast HERE.

One central facet to the development of the modern institutional society under which we live and are dominated today, was the redefining of the concept of u201Cdemocracyu201D that took place in the early 20th century. This immensely important discussion took place among the educated, elite intellectual class in the United States at that time, and the consequences of which were profound for the development of not only American society and democracy, but for the globalization that followed after World War II. The central theme that emerged was that in the age of u201Cmass democracyu201D, where people came to be known as u201Cthe public,u201D the concept of u201Cdemocracyu201D was redefined to be a system of government and social organization which was to be managed by an intellectual elite, largely concerned with u201Cthe engineering of consentu201D of the masses in order to allow elite-management of society to continue unhindered.

The socio-economic and political situation of the United States had, throughout the 19th century, rapidly changed. Official slavery was ended after the Civil War and the wage-slave method of labour was introduced on a much wider scale; that is, the approach at which people are no longer property themselves, but rather lend their labour at minimal hourly wages, a difference equated with rental slavery versus owned slavery. While the system of labour had itself changed, the living conditions of the labourers did not improve a great deal. With Industrialization also came increased urbanization, poverty, and thus, social unrest. The 19th Century in the United States was one of near-constant labour unrest, social upheaval and a rapidly growing wealth divide. And it was not simply the lower labouring classes that were experiencing the harsh rigors of a modern industrial life. One social critic of the era, writing in 1873, discussed the situation of the middle class in America:

Very few among them are saving money. Many of them are in debt; and all they can earn for years, is, in many cases, mortgaged to pay such debt… [We see] the unmistakable signs of their incessant anxiety and struggles to get on in life, and to obtain in addition to a mere subsistence, a standing in society… The poverty of the great middle classes consists in the fact that they have only barely enough to cover up their poverty… their poverty is felt, mentally and socially, through their sense of dependence and pride. They must work constantly, and with an angry sense of the limited opportunities for a career at their command.[1]

As immigrants from Europe and Asia flooded America, a growing sense of racism emerged among the faltering middle class. This situation created enormous tension and unease among middle and working class Americans, and indeed, the industrialists who ruled over them. Yet many in the middle class viewed the lower class, which was increasingly rebellious, as well as the immigrant labourers — also quite militant — as a threat to their own standing in society. Instead of focusing primarily on the need for reorganization at the top of the social structure, they looked to the masses — the working people — as the greatest source of instability. Their approach was in attempting to preserve — or construct — a system beneficial to their own particular interests. Since the middle class survived on the backs of the workers, it was not in their interest as a class to support radical workers movements and revolutionary philosophies. Thus, while criticizing those at the top, the call came for u2018reform', not revolution; for passive pluralism not democratic populism; for amelioration, not anarchy.

This is what became known as the u2018Progressive Movement' in American history. Influential journalists became leading u2018Progressives,' and prominent social thinkers and social critics began further analyzing and arming the journalists with reformist ideas. The middle class was itself a major audience for progressive journalists. They acknowledged the need for social change and reorganization, and pushed for a method of achieving such change through the rational approach of u2018social science' and u201Csocial evaluation.u201D[2] One of these leading progressive journalists, Edward Bellamy, wrote a book in 1888, Looking Backward, in which he argued that, u201Cit would be the force of public opinion — opinion bolstered by the instrument of reason — that would perform the task of remaking the world for the benefit of all humanity.u201D Thus, u201Can informed and intelligent u2018public' would be the agency through which a new historical epoch would be initiated.u201D[3]

This progressive form of journalism came to be known as u201Cmuckraking,u201D a term coined by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, as this reform-oriented investigative journalism u201Cbegan to reshape the discourse of public life,u201D driven by increasing discontent over governmental and corporate corruption.

The notion of u201Cthe publicu201D was born in the eighteenth century Enlightenment, fused with the notion that the public was a rational body of persons, able to comprehend, identify and organize facts, premised on — as philosopher Jrgen Habermas articulated — the u201Cinformed, literate men, engaged with one another in an ongoing process of u2018critical-rational' debate.u201D Thomas Jefferson reiterated such notions, suggesting that, u201Cthe creed of our political faithu201D rested at u201Cthe bar of public reason.u201D Progressive journalism gave profound emphasis to the promotion of facts and u201Csocial documentation.u201D[4]

Mass circulation media had changed the nature of u201Cthe publicu201D in the late 19th century. In particular, the newspaper industry grew, and like with other industries between the 1880s and World War I, u201Cfinancial consolidation and technological innovation combined to alter the character and scale of big-city and small-town journalism,u201D as newspapers became big business. Thus, news was becoming u201Cstandardized,u201D and the growth and business of magazine publishing followed suit.[5]

Yet, the proliferation of mass media was of a dual nature. While more people were able to gain access to more information from more places simultaneously, there was also the development of a trend in the emergence of a u201Cpublicu201D increasingly defined as u201Cspectators,u201D no longer active participants in the u2018public square,' but observers from afar, in their geographically segregated middle class.[6]

As the first decade of the 20th century drew to a close, and World War I drew nearer, a new concern was increasingly developing among the u2018Progressive' movement and its ideologues and journalists. While continuing to push for reform, there was a growing rumbling and sense of revolution brewing from below, among the working class people. This concern increasingly moved to the forefront among Progressive intellectuals, who saw their own class and social conceptions threatened by the grumbling masses trapped in poverty beneath them. Perhaps the most influential intellect of the early 20th century was a man named Walter Lippmann, a Harvard graduate who joined with Progressive publicists and had even joined the Socialist Party in 1910. By 1914, however, Lippmann had turned from his socialist inclinations, and wrote the well-received Drift and Mastery, which prompted Teddy Roosevelt to refer to Lippmann as u201Cthe most brilliant man of his age,u201D at just 25 years old. Lippmann's principle concern was with the notion of the people ruling:

Ongoing middle-class hostility toward big business — once understood as a constructive catalyst for social reform — had now become, to Lippmann's increasingly conservative mind, an inadvertent stimulus of social disintegration. As attacks on the practices of big business mounted and an increasingly militant working-class movement challenged the very concept of privately held wealth, Lippmann became more and more alarmed… In a country once u201Cnotorious for its worship of success,u201D Lippmann wrote, public disfavor was being heaped u201Csavagely upon those who had achieved it.u201D[7]

Lippmann held the muckraking journalists increasingly responsible for this change on social perception, in which social unrest u201Cthreatened to spin out of control.u201D Lippmann described what he saw as an atmosphere of u201Caccusation,u201D largely aimed at big business, which he viewed as u201Ca collective psychological malady, a dangerous condition of paranoia, that, unless checked, posed a greater danger to society than the excesses of wealth.u201D Society was a pot on the verge of boiling over. As Lippmann wrote:

The sense of conspiracy and secret scheming which transpire is almost uncanny. u201CBig Business,u201D and its ruthless tentacles, have become the material for the feverish fantasy of illiterate thousands thrown out of kilter by the rack and strain of modern life… all the frictions of life are readily ascribed to a deliberate evil intelligence, and men like Morgan and Rockefeller take on attributes of omnipotence, that ten minutes of cold sanity would reduce to a barbarous myth.[8]

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt gave an interview with the New Haven Register in which he lamented that the excesses of big business, coupled with the challenge of muckraking journalism, was creating a deeply precarious situation, in which, u201Csooner or later, unless there is a readjustment, there will come a riotous wicked, murderous day of atonement.u201D Thus, a u201Csearch for orderu201D had come to dominate the minds of the once-reformist intellectuals of the day. As Stewart Ewen wrote in his excellent book, PR! A Social History of Spin:

Progressives looked for new strategies that might be employed to contain this impending social crisis. In this quest, a growing number turned toward the new ideas and techniques of the social sciences, hoping to discover foolproof instruments for diagnosing social problems and achieving social stability… To Lippmann and a growing number of others… the social sciences appealed less in their ability to create an informed public and more in their promise to help establish social control.[9]

Lippmann felt that the u201Cdiscipline of scienceu201D would need to be applied to democracy, and that, u201Csocial engineers, social scientists, armed with their emerging expertise, would provide the modern state with a foundation upon which a new stability might be realized.u201D Thus, explained Ewen:

[N]ovel strategies of social management and the conviction that a technical elite might be able to engineer social order were becoming increasingly attractive… Accompanying a democratic current of social analysis that sought to educate the public at large, another — more cabalistic — tradition of social-scientific thought was emerging, one that saw the study of society as a tool by which a technocratic elite could help serve the interests of vested power.[10]

One of the most important works of this period was the 1895 work by French social psychologist, Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, in which he analyzed the changing nature of politics from being middle class oriented to transforming into popular democracy in which u201Cthe opinion of the massesu201D was becoming the most important opinion in society. Le Bon wrote that, u201CThe destinies of nations are elaborated at present in the heart of the masses, and no longer in the councils of princes.u201D He lamented that, u201Cthe claims of the masses are becoming more and more sharply defined, and amount to nothing less than a determination to destroy utterly society as it now exists,u201D and that, u201CThe divine right of the masses is about to replace the divine right of kings.u201D The u201Ccrowd,u201D postulated Le Bon, was only able to u2018react' and was driven not by logic or reason, but by passion and emotion.[11]

An associate and friend of Le Bon's, Gabriel Tarde, expanded upon this concept, and articulated the idea that u201Cthe crowdu201D was a social group of the past, and that u201Cthe publicu201D was u201Cthe social group of the future.u201D The public, argued Tarde, was a u201Cspiritual collectivity, a dispersion of individuals who are physically separated and whose cohesion is entirely mental.u201D Thus, Tarde identified in the growth of the printing press and mass communications, a powerful medium through which u201Cthe publicu201D is shaped, and that, if managed appropriately, could bring a sense of order to a situation increasingly chaotic. The newspaper, Tarde explained, facilitated u201Cthe fusion of personal opinions into local opinions, and this into national and world opinion, the grandiose unification of the public mind.u201D A German sociologist named Ferdinand Tonnies argued that the newspaper became a channel through which one faction of society could u201Cpresent its own will as the rational general will.u201D Thus, u201Cobjective realityu201D was in actuality, managed and controlled. The press, in this case, as the u201Corgan of public opinionu201D could be a u201Cweapon and tool in the hands of those who know how to use it and have to use it… It is comparable and, in some respects, superior to the material power which the states possess through their armies, their treasuries, and their bureaucratic civil service.u201D[12]

One of Walter Lippmann's most influential teachers at Harvard, Graham Wallas, wrote that, u201COrganized Thought has become typical.u201D Thus, the idea of u201Cthe publicu201D — malleable to suggestion, organized and controlled — came to manifest a type of u2018solution' to the problem of u201Cthe crowdu201D — irrational, emotionally driven, and reactive. While the crowd was irrational, the u2018public' could be reasoned with.[13]

One individual who was greatly influenced by these ideas was a man named Ivy Lee, a newspaperman who graduated from Princeton in 1898, and had come to offer his services to major industrial executives as one of the first corporate public relations practitioners. In 1916, he told a group of railroad executives that, u201CYou suddenly find you are not running a private business, but running a business of which the public itself is taking complete supervision. The crowd is in the saddle, the people are on the job, and we must take consideration of that fact, whether we like it or not.u201D Thus, Lee felt that it was essential for the business community to u201Cmanufacture a commonality of interests between them and an often censorious public to establish a critical line of defense against the crowd.u201D[14]

Ivy Lee defined the job of public relations persons to that of a u201Cnews engineer,u201D and described himself as u201Ca physician for corporate bodies.u201D The aim was to u201Csupply newsu201D to the press and the public so as to u201Cunderstand better the soundness of a corporation's policy or perspective.u201D[15]

One notable event was what came to be known as the Ludlow Massacre. The Colorado coal strike began in September 1913, in which roughly eleven thousand miners (mostly Greeks, Italians and Serbs) went on strike following the murder of one of their organizers. They went on strike against the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation, which was owned by the Rockefeller family, and against their low pay, horrible living conditions, and the u201Cfeudal domination of their lives in towns completely controlled by the mining companies.u201D The strikers were immediately evicted from their shacks in the towns, and subsequently set up tent colonies, when the Rockefellers hired gunmen (using Gatling guns and rifles) to raid the tent colonies. The Colorado governor called out the National Guard (whose wages were paid by the Rockefellers), and raided the colonies. On 20 April 1914, the largest tent colony at Ludlow, housing over one thousand men, women and children, was machine gunned by the National Guard, with the strikers firing back. When the leader of the strike was called up to negotiate a truce, he was shot dead, and the machine gun fire continued, with the Guard moving in at nightfall to set fire to the tents. The following day it was discovered that one tent included the charred bodies of eleven children and two women. This became known as the Ludlow Massacre.[16]

The Rockefeller Foundation emerged in this era, and became immediately interested in the u2018construction of knowledge' as a means to defending the interests of the Rockefeller Group and capitalist society as a whole. The Rockefeller Foundation secretary, Jerome Greene, identified u201Cresearch and propagandau201D as a means to quiet social and political unrest. It was felt that u201Cpublic opinion on the labor question could be shaped through the foundation in order to counter leftist and populist attacks on both the Rockefeller business enterprises and on capitalism.u201D[17]

Following the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, a government commission — the Walsh Commission — was appointed to study the issue, and the Rockefeller Foundation began preparation for its own study.[18] As the Walsh Commission began their work, the Rockefeller Foundation sought to join forces with other major corporate leaders to advance their formation of ideology, and attended a conference u201Cheld between representatives of some of the largest financial interestsu201D in the United States. This conference resulted in two approaches being pushed forward in terms of seeking to u201Ceducate the citizenry in procapitalistic ideology and thus relieve unrest.u201D One view was the interpretation that the public was provided with u201Cpoor quality of facts and interpretation available on social and economic issues.u201D Thus, they felt there was a need for a u201Cpublicity bureauu201D to provide a u201Cconstant stream of correct informationu201D targeted at the lower and middle classes. However:

The Rockefeller representatives at the conference proposed an alternative strategy of public enlightenment. Although they accepted the usefulness of such a publicity organization, they also wanted a permanent research organization to manufacture knowledge on these subjects. While a publicity organization would u201Ccorrect popular misinformation,u201D the research institution would study the u201Ccauses of social and economic evils,u201D using its reputation for disinterestedness and scientific detachment to u201Cobtain public confidence and respect,u201D for its findings. And, of course, the research findings could be disseminated through the publicity bureau as well as other outlets.[19]

While the Rockefeller Foundation sought to manufacture ideology in response to the Ludlow Massacre and industrial relations in general, on the corporate side of the matter, the Rockefeller group employed the ideas of an emerging field of public relations, and specifically utilized the talent of Ivy Lee, one of the first PR men in America. Lee's efforts were employed in u201Cdamage controlu201D for the Rockefeller name, which was highly despised by the general public in the early 20th century. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hired Ivy Lee on behalf of the Rockefellers to u201Csecure publicity for their views.u201D What Lee did for the Rockefellers initially was to produce a series of circulars entitled, u201CFacts Concerning the Strike in Colorado for Industrial Freedom,u201D which were sent to u201Cpublic officials, editors, ministers, teachers, and prominent professional and business men,u201D in an attempt u201Cto cultivate middle-class allies.u201D[20]

Based around the concept that u201Ctruth happens to an ideau201D — a famous phrase of Ivy Lee's — his bulletins were operating on the basis that u201Csomething asserted might become a fact, regardless of its connection to actual events.u201D As Lee explained to the Walsh Commission in 1915, in regards to his definition of u2018truth': u201CBy the truth, Mr. Chairman, I mean the truth about the operators' case. What I was to do was to advise and get their case into proper shape for them.u201D[21] When asked the question, u201CWhat personal effort did you ever make to ascertain that the facts given to you by the operators [the Rockefeller group] were correct?,u201D Lee responded: u201CNone whatever.u201D As Lee stated to a grouping of railroad executives in 1916:

It is not the facts alone that strike the popular mind, but the way in which they take place and in which they are published that kindle the imagination… Besides, What is a fact? The effort to state an absolute fact is simply an attempt to… give you my interpretation of the facts.[22]

With World War I, the term u2018propaganda' became popularized and took on negative connotations. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson established the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI) as a u201Cvast propaganda ministry.u201D The aim of the CPI was to build support in the public for the war, and such an effort was especially challenging in the face of significant anti-war sentiments and potential resistance. This potential was especially ripe in immigrant communities, cramped in urban ghettos and lost to the failed promises of u201Copportunityu201D that drew them to America in the first place. Before U.S. involvement in the war, u201Cworking-class and radical organizations, pacifists, anarchists and many socialists, maintained that this was nothing but a u2018rich man's war'.u201D[23]

It was not only in America that working class sentiments were extremely anti-war, but in Britain and other major nations as well. To add to this situation, in 1917, Russia was in the midst of revolution, leading to the exacerbation of fears on the part of many leading intellectuals and social analysts that revolution was possible anywhere. Thus, many of these analysts and intellectuals had begun lobbying President Wilson u201Cfor the establishment of an ideological apparatus that would systematically promote the cause of war. One of these analysts was Arthur Bullard, a leading Progressive, who had been a student of Wilson when the president had been a history professor at Princeton.u201D Bullard advocated a strong wave of publicity for the government in promoting the war, to u201Celectrify public opinion.u201D Bullard thus suggested the formation of a u201Cpublicity bureauu201D for the government, u201Cwhich would constantly keep before the public the importance of supporting the men at the front. It would requisition space on the front page of every newspaper; it would call for a u2018draft' of trained writers to feed u2018Army stories' to the public; it would create a Corps of Press Agents,u201D and to organize a propaganda campaign aimed at making the struggle u201Ccomprehensible and popular.u201D[24]

Walter Lippmann, who was the most respected and influential political thinker of that era, wrote a private letter to President Wilson supporting Bullard's recommendation, adding that the chief aim of such an agency should be to promote a vision and advertise the war as seeking u201Cto make a world that is safe for democracy.u201D According to Lippmann, war necessitated the nurturing of u201Ca healthy public opinion.u201D The President asked Lippmann to develop a plan for the specifics of such an agency, for which Lippmann developed a grand strategic vision, mobilizing communications specialists, and the motion picture industry. Thus, in April of 1917, the Committee on Public Information (CPI) was formed, whose membership included the secretary of state, the secretary of war, and the secretary of the navy, as well as a civilian director, George Creel, a Progressive journalist. Creel, who had been central in the original generation of Progressive writers and publicists, had developed an extensive list of contacts and understood well u201Cthe importance of public opinion.u201D Thus, as Stuart Ewen wrote, u201CWhen war was declared, an impassioned generation of Progressive publicists fell into line, surrounding the war effort with a veil of much-needed liberal-democratic rhetoric.u201D[25]

As the concepts and ideas of u201Cpublic opinionu201D and u201Cmass democracyu201D emerged, the dominant political and social theorists of the era took to a debate on redefining democracy. Central to this discussion were the books and ideas of Walter Lippmann. With the concept of the u201Cscientific managementu201D of society by social scientists standing firm in the background, society's problems were viewed as u201Ctechnical problemsu201D intended to be resolved through rational professionals and experts. Scientific Management, then, would be applied not merely to the Industrial factories to which the concept was introduced by Frederick Taylor, but to society as a whole. Lippmann took it upon himself to describe the role and means through which u201CScientific Managementu201D could be applied within an industrial democratic society. Lippmann felt that the notion of an u201Comnicompetent, sovereign citizenu201D was u201Ca false ideal. It is unattainable. The pursuit of it is misleading. The failure to produce it has produced the current disenchantment.u201D Further, for Lippmann, society had gained u201Ca complexity now so great as to be humanly unmanageable.u201D Thus, there was a need, wrote Lippmann, u201Cfor interposing some form of expertness between the private citizen and the vast environment in which he is entangled.u201D Just as with Frederick Taylor's conception of u201Cscientific managementu201D of the factory, the application of this concept to society would require, in Lippmann's words, u201Csystematic intelligence and information control,u201D which would become u201Cthe normal accompaniment of action.u201D With such control, Lippmann asserted, u201Cpersuasion… become[s] a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government,u201D and the u201Cmanufacture of consent improve[s] enormously in technique, because it is now based on analysis rather than rule of thumb.u201D[26]

Thus, arose the panacea of propaganda: the solution to society's ailments. u201CIn a world of competing political doctrines,u201D wrote Lippmann, u201Cthe partisans of democratic government cannot depend solely upon appeal to reason or abstract liberalism.u201D Henceforth, u201Cpropaganda, as the advocacy of ideas and doctrines, has a legitimate and desirable part to play in our democratic system.u201D Harold Lasswell, a leading political scientist and communications theorist in the early 20th century, wrote that: u201CThe modern conception of social management is profoundly affected by the propagandist outlook. Concerted action for public ends depends upon a certain concentration of motives… Propaganda is surely here to stay; the modern world is peculiarly dependent upon it for the co-ordination of atomized components in times of crisis and for the conduct of large scale u2018normal operations'.u201D In other words, propaganda is not merely a tool for times of war and crisis, but for times of peace and stability as well; that propaganda is the means and method through which to attain and maintain that stability. Lippmann added to the discussion that, u201Cwithout some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct a propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event.u201D[27]

In 1922, Lippmann wrote his profoundly influential book, Public Opinion, in which he expressed his thoughts on the inability of citizens — or the public — to guide democracy or society for themselves. The u201Cintellectuality of mankind,u201D Lippmann argued, was exaggerated and false. Instead, he defined the public as u201Can amalgam of stereotypes, prejudices and inferences, a creature of habits and associations, moved by impulses of fear and greed and imitation, exalted by tags and labels.u201D[28] Lippmann suggested that for the effective u201Cmanufacture of consent,u201D what was needed were u201Cintelligence bureausu201D or u201Cobservatories,u201D employing the social scientific techniques of u201Cdisinterestedu201D information to be provided to journalists, governments, and businesses regarding the complex issues of modern society.[29] These essentially came to be known and widely employed as think tanks, the most famous of which is the Council on Foreign Relations, founded in 1921 and to which Lippmann later belonged as a member.

In 1925, Lippmann wrote another immensely important work entitled, The Phantom Public, in which he expanded upon his conceptions of the public and democracy. In his concept of democratic society, Lippmann wrote that, u201CA false ideal of democracy can lead only to disillusionment and to meddlesome tyranny,u201D and to prevent this from taking place, u201Cthe public must be put in its place… so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.u201D[30] Defining the public as a u201Cbewildered herd,u201D Lippmann went on to conceive of u2018public opinion,' not as u201Cthe voice of God, nor the voice of society, but the voice of the interested spectators of action.u201D Thus, u201Cthe opinions of the spectators must be essentially different from those of the actors.u201D This new conception of society, managed by actors and not the u201Cbewildered herdu201D of u201Cspectatorsu201D would be constructed so as to subject the managers of society, wrote Lippmann, u201Cto the least possible interference from ignorant and meddlesome outsiders.u201D[31] In case there was any confusion, the u201Cbewildered herdu201D of u201Cspectatorsu201D made up of u201Cignorant and meddlesome outsidersu201D is the public, is we, the people.

Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and former member of Woodrow Wilson's wartime propaganda machine, the Committee on Public Information (CPI), was another u2018actor' who played his part in redefining democracy in the age of public opinion. In his 1923 book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, Bernays explained how the ideas of individuals could be shaped into mass opinions through the use of propaganda and u2018public relations.' Known commonly as the u201CFather of Public Relations,u201D Bernays, returning from the post-War Paris Conference in 1919, believed quite strongly in the idea that if propaganda could be used effectively in times of war, it can and should be used effectively in times of peace.

In 1928, Edward Bernays wrote an article for the American Journal of Sociology entitled, u201CManipulating Public Opinion: The Why and the How.u201D Public opinion, explained Bernays, u201Cis the thought of a society at a given time toward a given object; broadly conceived, it is the power of the group to sway the larger public in its attitude.u201D Bernays was also influenced not simply by his own experiences in the wartime Committee on Public Information, but also by his uncle, Sigmund Freud's ideas which regarded people as irrational and driven by subconscious emotional desires. With such a conception of the psychology of individuals and groups, Bernays and others felt that people must have their beliefs and opinions shaped by others, others who presumably are the exceptions to the rule regarding the emotionally driven irrational mind. Reflecting this belief, Bernays wrote: u201CPublic opinion can be manipulated, but in teaching the public how to ask for what it wants the manipulator is safeguarding the public against his own possible aggressiveness.u201D[32] Today — claimed Bernays — the swaying of public opinion u201Cis one of the manifestations of democracy that anyone may try to convince others and to assume leadership on behalf of his own thesis.u201D[33]

Bernays' attempt to present the manipulation of public opinion as a u201Cmanifestation of democracyu201D crudely neglects the reality of those who have access to the apparatus and mechanisms that sway public opinion, itself. If that apparatus, which it largely is, is confined to the upper class of society, is that not a bastardization of democratic ideals? Bernays further explained:

The manipulation of the public mind… serves a social purpose. This manipulation serves to gain acceptance for new ideas.[34]

Bernays described the nature of propaganda, explaining that one major experiment on the manipulation of public opinion concluded that u201Cattitudes were often created by a circumstance or circumstances of dramatic moment.u201D Thus, Bernays explained, u201Cvery often the propagandist is called upon to create a circumstance that will eventuate in the desired reaction on the part of the public he is endeavoring to reach.u201D[35] In other words: problem, reaction, solution. Create a problem to incur a specific reaction for which you provide a desired solution. For the propagandist, u201Canalysis of the problem and its causes is the first step toward shaping the public mind on any subject.u201D[36] Bernays wrote:

This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas. Public opinion can be moved, directed, and formed by such a technique. But at the core of this great heterogeneous body of public opinion is a tenacious will to live, to progress, to move in the direction of ultimate social and individual benefit. He who seeks to manipulate public opinion must always heed it.[37]

Bernays later wrote on the development of the public relations industry, of which he was a central and pioneering actor. u201CPublic relations,u201D wrote Bernays, was u201Ca relatively new profession, and its practitioner, the professional counsel on public relations, serve a constructive function in our complex, free society.u201D He elaborated: u201Cpublic relations came about because organized activity, which depends on public support, needed a societal technician to counsel it — the counsel on public relations.u201D This, Bernays felt, was vital to a u201Cdemocratic societyu201D:

New and faster means of communication and transportation furthered the growth of the profession. Social science research increased understanding of human behavior. The greater complexity of the society and the overlapping and interwoven network of communications that hold it together almost made the evolution of the new profession inevitable.[38]

As Bernays explained, u201C[i]n a democratic society almost every activity depends on public understanding and support,u201D and thus, he concluded, this can only be brought about u201Cby public education, persuasion, and suggestion by effective public relations. This profession makes it possible for minority ideas to be more readily accepted by the majority.u201D He referred to this as u201Cthe marketplace of ideas,u201D but neglected to explain that, like other markets, this one, too, is rigged. His conception of u201Cdemocratic societyu201D is very much an elitist view of democratic society, articulated best by Walter Lippmann in seeking to u201Cengineer the consentu201D of the public, which was viewed as irrational and incapable of true democracy. Reflecting on his 1923 book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, Bernays discussed the concept of the u201Cmanufacture of consent,u201D a term coined by Walter Lippmann but which Bernays was eager to present as his own. He stated: u201CI refined the approach and called it the engineering of consentu201D:

In the engineering of consent, determination of goals is subject to change after research about the relevant publics. Only after we know the state of public opinion through research can we be sure that our goals are realistic.[39]

In 1947, Bernays re-examined his support for propaganda in a democratic society, writing that:

Today it is impossible to overestimate the importance of engineering consent; it affects almost every aspect of our daily lives. When used for social purposes, it is among our most valuable contributions to the efficient functioning of modern society.[40]

Naturally, it seems, u201Cefficiencyu201D is held in high regard as an objective of social planning and thus, an aim of society itself. As such, u201Ceffectu201D is often left by the wayside, as in: the effect of an u201Cefficientu201D modern society is secondary to the actual efficiency of it. Thus, if the effect of a modern society is dehumanization, so long as that process is u201Cefficient,u201D social planners may view it as desirable, present it as u201Cfunctioning,u201D and see whatever means which bring it about as u201Cvaluable contributions.u201D But then, it must be conceded, the u2018desired effect' for social planners is always social control. Regardless of the human or dehumanizing effects of such a system, if the result is u201Corder and control,u201D and so long as this is achieved u201Cefficiently,u201D the system functions well.

In 1928, Edward Bernays wrote a book entitled, Propaganda, which later became used by infamous propagandists such as Hitler's propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels. On the first page of his book, Bernays wrote, and it is worth quoting at some length:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons… who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.[41]

These ideas, among many others, have had incredible influence on the philosophy, actions, intentions, and perceptions of not only American society, but the world at large. They spurred on the development of the consumer society, along with other projects of social engineering that have, through the course of the 20th century, been focused on the application of social control. It is fundamentally though the notion of u201Cengineering consentu201D that we have come to the point where so few are able to control so much, leaving little to nothing for the vast majority of the world's people. This elite intellectual discussion which took place in the early 20th century came to define democracy not only for America, but the world as a whole. Thus, we have a new understanding when it comes to our leaders expressing their desires and objectives of spreading democracy around the world. In short, they seek to u201Cengineer consentu201D on a much larger, grander scale than ever before imagined. It is the globalization of social engineering which we are witnessing in the modern era, and its origins lay in the discernable past.

Notes

[1] Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996), page 42

[2] Ibid, pages 44-46.

[3] Ibid, page 46.

[4] Ibid, pages 49-50.

[5] Ibid, pages 50-54.

[6] Ibid, pages 58-59.

[7] Ibid, pages 60-61.

[8] Ibid, pages 62.

[9] Ibid, pages 63-64.

[10] Ibid, page 64.

[11] Ibid, pages 64-66.

[12] Ibid, pages 67-71.

[13] Ibid, pages 71-73.

[14] Ibid, pages 74-75.

[15] Ibid, pages 76-78.

[16] Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (Harper Perennial: New York, 2003), pages 354-355.

[17] Robert F. Arnove, ed., Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad (Indiana University Press: Boston, 1980), page 67.

[18] Ibid, page 68.

[19] Ibid, pages 69-70.

[20] Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996), page 78.

[21] Ibid, page 79.

[21] Ibid, pages 80-81.

[22] Ibid, pages 104-105.

[23] Ibid, pages 104-105.

[24] Ibid, pages 106-107.

[25] Ibid, pages 108-109.

[26] Frank Webster and Kevin Robins, u201CPlan and Control: Towards a Cultural History of the Information Society,u201D Theory and Society (Vol. 18, 1989), pages 341-342.

[27] Ibid, pages 342-343.

[28] Sidney Kaplan, u201CSocial Engineers as Saviors: Effects of World War I on Some American Liberals,u201D Journal of the History of Ideas (Vol. 17, No. 3, June 1956), pages 366-367.

[29] Sue Curry Jansen, u201CPhantom Conflict: Lippmann, Dewey, and the Fate of the Public in Modern Society,u201D Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (Vol. 6, No. 3, 2009), page 225.

[30] Walter Lippmann, et. al., The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy (Harvard University Press, 1982), page 91.

[31] Ibid, page 92.

[32] Edward Bernays, u201CManipulating Public Opinion: The Why and the How,u201D American Journal of Sociology (Vol. 33, No. 6, May 1928), page 958.

[33] Ibid, page 959.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid, pages 961-962.

[36] Ibid, page 969.

[37] Ibid, page 971.

[38] Edward Bernays, u201CEmergence of the Public Relations Counsel: Principles and Recollections,u201D The Business History Review (Vol. 45, No. 3, Autumn 1971), page 296.

[39] Ibid, page 297.

[40] Edward Bernays, u201CThe Engineering of Consent,u201D Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Vol. 250, Communication and Social Action, March 1947), page 115.

[41] Edward Bernays, Propaganda (New York: Ig Publishing, 1928), page 37.

Reprinted with permission from Andrew Gavin Marshall’s website.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project. Visit his website.

NOTE: The following is a brief six-page excerpt from a 60-page chapter on the origins of the American Empire at the end of World War II. The chapter, nearly complete, is one of several chapters in a book being funded and facilitated through The People's Book Project, which is aimed at producing a multi-volume book on a modern history of institutions and ideas of power and resistance. Included within the volumes are: the emergence of nation-states, capitalism, and central banking; the rise of the European empires and colonization; the emergence of new dynastic powers, namely the banking and industrial families of the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, et. al.; the development of the mass education system as a means of social control; the emergence and evolution of university education, the social sciences, and the formation of new concepts of social control and methods of social engineering; the development, purpose, and effects of philanthropic foundations on society; the emergence and evolution of the consumer culture, advertising, public relations, and advanced systems of propaganda; the development of the “modern institutional society”, with an examination of the different brands in Communist, Fascist, and Liberal Democratic states; the development and intent of the Welfare State, social services, and management of the poor; the effect of two world wars, and the formation of the American Empire with its political, military, intelligence, economic, financial, and cultural apparatus and institutions of expansion, including the American foundations, think tanks, World Bank, IMF, UN, NATO, CIA, Pentagon, etc.; the role of international think tanks like the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission in shaping and re-shaping world order and expanding dominance and control of the world; the formation of an apparatus of global governance and the ideology of globalism; population control and the environmental movement; and finally the emergence, evolution, and role of science, technology, psychology, and psychiatry on the development of a global scientific dictatorship… and what we can do to change all of this!

The above is not even an exhaustive list of the scope of this multi-volume book. Over 500 pages has been written thus far, and there is a great deal more to go, at which point the end result will be broken up into relevant sections as a complete volume on the modern history of ideas and institutions of power in our world, asking and answering the questions: What is the nature of our global society? How did we get here? Who brought us here? When did this begin? Where are we going? Why? … and what can we do to change it.

The People's Book Project is currently in need of support, as it has run out of funds. Please donate to help ensure that this project can move forward and help support an effort to provide a new examination of our world, and a new understanding in how we can go about changing it! Thank you.

Chapter Excerpt: The Making of the American Empire

The process of establishing an American Empire during and after World War II was not — as has been postulated (by those who even admit there is such a thing as an “American Empire”) — an “accident” of history, something America seemingly stumbled into as a result of its unhindered economic growth and military-political position as arbiter of world peace and prosperity. A vast literature has developed in the academic realm and policy circles — particularly within Political Science and the think tank community, respectively — which postulates a notion of “American empire” or “American hegemony” as accidental, incidental, benevolent, reluctant, and desirable.

Robert Kagan is a prominent American neoconservative historian. He is a Senior Fellow at the prestigious think tank, the Brookings Institution, was a founder of the neoconservative think tank, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), formerly worked at the State Department in the Reagan administration under Secretary of State, George Shultz, and served for over a decade as a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and is, of course, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Kagan has written a great deal on the notion of American hegemony. As he wrote in the journal, Foreign Policy, in 1998, u201Cthe truth about America's dominant role in the world is known to most clear-eyed international observers.u201D This truth, according to Kagan, u201Cis that the benevolent hegemony exercised by the United States is good for a vast portion of the world's population.u201D Samuel Huntington, another Council member and prominent American strategist, wrote that, u201CA world without U.S. primacy will be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth than a world where the United States continues to have more influence than any other country shaping global affairs.u201D[1] This u201CBenevolent Empireu201D — as Kagan titles his article — rests on such fundamental ideas as the notion u201Cthat American freedom depends on the survival and spread of freedom elsewhere,u201D and that, u201CAmerican prosperity cannot occur in the absence of global prosperity.u201D For half a century, Kagan wrote, Americans u201Chave been guided by the kind of enlightened self-interest that, in practice, comes dangerously close to resembling generosity.u201D[2]

Sebastian Mallaby, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, former Editorial Board Member and columnist at the Washington Post as well as correspondent and bureau chief for The Economist, wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs, that u201Cempire's are not always planned,u201D referring to America as u201CThe Reluctant Imperialist.u201D[3] Lawrence Summers, another prominent economist, politician, and policy-maker for the Clinton and Obama administrations, referred to America as u201Chistory's only nonimperialist superpower.u201D[4] Niall Ferguson, a prominent British liberal economic historian, has written extensively on the open acknowledgement of u201CAmerican Empire,u201D but stipulates, as he did in his book Colossus, u201Cthat the United States is an empire and that this might not be wholly bad.u201D Referring to America as an u201CUnconscious Colossus,u201D Ferguson stressed that, u201Ca self-conscious American imperialism might well be preferable to the available alternatives.u201D[5] Ferguson in fact stresses the need for Americans to u201Crecognize the imperial characteristics of their own power today [writing in 2005] and, if possible, to learn from the achievements and failures of past empires.u201D This, Ferguson felt, would reduce the so-called u201Cperilsu201D of being an u201Cempire in denial.u201D[6]

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., famed American liberal historian and adviser to President Kennedy, wrote that the United States enjoys u201Can informal empire — military bases, status-of-forces agreements, trade concessions, multinational corporations, cultural penetrations, and other favors,u201D yet, contends Schlesinger, u201Cthese are marginal to the subject of direct control,u201D and instead, u201Cfar from ruling an empire in the old sense,u201D America u201Chas become the virtual prisoner of its client states.u201D[7] Some other commentators referred to America as a u201Cvirtualu201D or even u201Cinadvertentu201D imperial power.[8]

The notion of America as a u201Creluctant imperialistu201D or a u201Cbenevolent empireu201D is not a new one. This has been the mainstay within the academic literature and policy-planning circles to both advocate for and justify the existence of American domination of the world. The concept of the reluctant, yet benevolent great power presents an image of a dutiful personage coming to the aid of those in need, following the responsibility which is derived from great power; that America's rise to economic prominence — also seen as the product of free and democratic initiative and ideals (thus negating America's long history of being a slave state and subsequently a brutal industrial society) — was the precursor to America being thrown the title of “global power,” and with that title bestowed upon it — like a child-king still unsure of his own abilities to rule — took up the activities of a global power with a desire to bring the rest of the world the same altruistic truths and enlightened ideals which made America flourish so; that America's gift to the world was to spread freedom and democracy, in the economic, political, and social spheres. This myth has been a constant foundation for the advocacy and justification of empire. Its importance rests most especially on the ideals and global public opinion which prevailed as the great European empires waned and ultimately collapsed through two World Wars.

The colonized peoples of the world had had enough of empire, had suffered so immeasurably and consistently under its tutelage, that the concept of empire was so discredited in the eyes of the world's majority as to be incapable of justifying in the formal imperial-colonial sense. At home, America's domestic political situation and public opinion had been largely isolationist, seeking to refrain from an expansive foreign policy, leading many American presidents and strategists to bemoan the struggle for empire beyond the continent on the reluctance of the American people and Congress to pursue aggressive expansionism (save for the expansion across the continent, wiping out Native American populations for American Lebensraum and the slow, increasing expression of trans-sovereign rights in Latin America, long considered u201CAmerica's backyardu201D).

World War II, then, presented a new opportunity, and a new challenge for America in the world. The opportunity was to become the worlds most powerful empire history had ever witnessed; the challenge, then, was to justify it in explicitly anti-imperial rhetoric. America, thus, was not a reluctant or accidental empire, nor, for that matter, a benevolent one. America was chosen to be an empire; it was strategised, discussed, debated, planned and implemented. The key architects of this empire were the bankers and corporations which arose out of America's Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, the philanthropic foundations they established in the early 20th century, the prominent think tanks created throughout the first half of the 20th century, and the major academics, strategists and policy-makers who emerged from the foundation-funded universities, institutes, think tanks, and the business community, and who dominated the corridors of power in the planning circles that made policy.

No sooner had World War II begun than American strategists began calling for a new global American empire. Henry R. Luce, a Yale graduate and founder of Time Magazine, Life, and Fortune, was among America's most influential publishers in the first half of the 20th century. A strong supporter of the Republican Party and virulent anti-Communist, Luce was also a staunch advocate of fascism in Europe — notably Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany — as a means of preventing the spread of Communism. In 1941, Luce wrote a famous article in Life entitled, u201CThe American Century,u201D in which he stated that, u201Cthe 20th Century must be to a significant degree an American Century.u201D Luce wrote that America has u201Cthat indefinable, unmistakable sign of leadership: prestige.u201D As such, unlike past empires like Rome, Genghis Khan, or Imperial Britain, u201CAmerican prestige throughout the world is faith in the good intentions as well as the ultimate intelligence and ultimate strength of the whole American people.u201D[9] Luce felt that the u201Cabundant lifeu201D of America should be made available u201Cfor all mankind,u201D as soon as mankind embraces u201CAmerica's vision.u201D Luce wrote:

It must be a sharing with all peoples of our Bill of Rights, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, our magnificent industrial products, our technical skills. It must be an internationalism of the people, by the people and for the people… We must undertake now to be the Good Samaritan of the entire world.[10]

While Luce was perhaps the first theorist to posit the specific concept of u201Cthe American Century,u201D the actual work done to create this century (or at least the latter half of it) for America was chiefly initiated by the Council on Foreign Relations, and the prominent strategist Dean Acheson, among others. As Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Dean Acheson delivered a speech at Yale entitled, u201CAn American Attitude Toward Foreign Affairs,u201D in which he articulated a vision of America in the near future, and as he later recalled, it was at the time of delivering this speech that Acheson began u201Cwork on a new postwar world system.u201D Acheson declared in his speech that, u201COur vital interests… do not permit us to be indifferent to the outcomeu201D of the wars erupting in Europe and Asia. The causes of the war, according to Acheson, were in u201Cthe failure of some mechanisms of the Nineteenth Century world economy,u201D which resulted in u201Cthis break-up of the world into exclusive areas for armed exploitation administered along oriental lines.u201D Recreating a world peace, posited Acheson, would require u201Ca broader market for goods made under decent standards,u201D as well as u201Ca stable international monetary systemu201D and the removal of u201Cexclusive preferential trade agreements.u201D Essentially, it was an advocacy for a global liberal economic order as the means to world peace, and without a hint of irony, Acheson then called for the immediate establishment of u201Ca navy and air force adequate to secure us in both oceans simultaneously and with striking power sufficient to reach to the other side of each of them.u201D[11] Dean Acheson was also closely involved in the Council on Foreign Relations' plans for the shaping of the post-War world order.

The Council on Foreign Relations and the “Grand Area”

Before America had even entered the war in late 1941, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was planning for America's assumed entry into the war. The CFR effectively undertook a policy coup d'tat over American foreign policy with the Second World War. When war broke out, the Council began a u201Cstrictly confidentialu201D project called the War and Peace Studies, in which top CFR members collaborated with the US State Department in determining US policy, and the project was entirely financed by the Rockefeller Foundation.[12] The War and Peace Studies project had come up with a number of initiatives for the post-War world. One of the most important objectives it laid out was the identification of what areas of the world America would need to control in order to facilitate strong economic growth. This came to be known as the u201CGrand Area,u201D and it included:

Latin America, Europe, the colonies of the British Empire, and all of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia was necessary as a source of raw materials for Great Britain and Japan and as a consumer of Japanese products. The American national interest was then defined in terms of the integration and defense of the Grand Area, which led to plans for the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank and eventually to the decision to defend Vietnam from a Communist takeover at all costs.[13]

In 1940, the Council on Foreign Relations also began a wide-ranging study of the war-time economic needs of the United States (prior to U.S. entry into the war), called the Financial and Economic Experts, which divided the world into four main blocs: continental Europe (which was dominated by Germany at the time), the U.S. –Western hemisphere, the United Kingdom and its colonial and commonwealth nations, and the Far-East-Pacific Area, including Japan, China, and the Dutch East Indies. The study compiled a list of each region's main imports and exports. Upon completion of the study in the fall of 1940, the Council sent its conclusions and policy recommendations to President Roosevelt and the State Department. The conclusions stated that the United States needed larger export markets for its products, and specifically that the U.S. needed u201Cliving spaceu201D (or as the Nazi German state referred to it, Lebensraum) throughout the Western hemisphere and beyond, as well as trade and u201Ceconomic integrationu201D with the Far East and the British Empire/Commonwealth blocs. The report stated bluntly, u201Cas a minimum, the American u2018national interests' involved the free access to markets and raw materials in the British Empire, the Far East, and the entire Western hemisphere.u201D[14]

This was the foundation for the Grand Area designs of the Council in the post-War world. The Grand Area project emphasized that for America to manage the u201CGrand Areasu201D of the world, multilateral organizations would be needed to help facilitate u201Cappropriate measures in the fields of trade, investment, and monetary arrangements.u201D The study further emphasized the need to maintain u201Cmilitary supremacyu201D in order to help facilitate control of these areas. As the Council's 1940 report to the U.S. State Department stated: u201CThe foremost requirement of the United States in a world in which it proposes to hold unquestioned power is the rapid fulfillment of a program of complete re-armament,u201D which would u201Cinvolve increased military expenditures and other risks.u201D[15]

While the Grand Area project was made and designed for the United States during World War II, it included plans for the post-War world, and included continental Europe in its designs following the assumed defeat of Germany. Thus, as economist Ismael Hossein-Zadeh wrote, u201Cmaking the Grand Area global.u201D The idea behind the u201CGrand Areau201D was u201Ceven more grandiose — one world economy dominated by the United States,u201D and the study itself suggested that the Grand Area u201Cwould then be an organized nucleus for building an integrated world economy after the war.u201D[16] As Shoup and Minter wrote in their study of the Council, Imperial Brain Trust, u201Cthe United States had to enter the war and organize a new world order satisfactory to the United States.u201D[17] Benevolent, indeed.

Following Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the War, the Council concluded as early as 1941 that the defeat of the Axis powers was simply a matter of time. As such, they were advancing their plans for the post-War world, expanding the Grand Area to:

include the entire globe. A new world order with international political and economic institutions was projected, which would join and integrate all of the earth's nations under the leadership of the United States. The Unification of the whole world was now the aim of the Council [on Foreign Relations] and government planners.[18]

As a part of this planning process, the U.S. Department of State formed the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy in late December of 1941, of which the first document that was produced, u201Cstressed the danger of another world depression and the need to provide confidence in world economic stability.u201D Thus, u201Cthe United States had to be involved with the internal affairs of the key industrial and raw materials-producing countries.u201D A key question in this was, as one postwar planner articulated, u201Chow to create purchasing power outside of our country which would be converted into domestic purchasing power through exportation.u201D The idea was about u201Cdevising appropriate institutionsu201D which would fulfill this role, ultimately resting with the formation of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later known as the World Bank). The postwar planners had to continually construct an idea of an international order, directed by the United States, which would not so easily resemble the formal colonial period or its methods of exerting hegemony.[19]

Recommendations of the Council suggested that such new international financial institutions were necessary in terms of u201Cstabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital investment for constructive undertakings in backward and underdeveloped regions.u201D These plans included for the establishment of an International Reconstruction Finance Corporations and an u201Cinternational investment agency which would stimulate world trade and prosperity by facilitating investment in development programs the world over.u201D These plans were drafted in recommendations and given to President Roosevelt and the Department of State.[20]

One Council member suggested that, u201CIt might be wise to set up two financial institutions: one an international exchange stabilization board and one an international bank to handle short-term transactions not directly concerned with stabilization.u201D Thus, the Council drafted in 1941 and 1942 plans that would result in the formation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which formally emerged from the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, an event that is commonly acknowledged as the u201Cbirthplaceu201D of the World Bank and IMF, thus ignoring their ideological origins at the Council on Foreign Relations two-to-three years prior. The internal department committees established in the Department of State and Treasury were well represented by Council members who drew up the final plans for the creation of these two major institutions.[21]

Whereas the League of Nations had been a major objective of the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation-funded Council on Foreign Relations following World War I, so too was the United Nations near the end of World War II. A steering committee consisting of U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull and five Council on Foreign Relations members was formed in 1943. One of the Council members, Isaiah Bowman,

suggested a way to solve the problem of maintaining effective control over weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest. At a Council [on Foreign Relations] meeting in May 1942, he stated that the United States had to exercise the strength needed to assure u201Csecurity,u201D and at the same time u201Cavoid conventional forms of imperialism.u201D The way to do this, he argued, was to make the exercise of that power international in character through a United Nations body.[22]

The u201Csecret steering committee,u201D later called the Informal Agenda Group, undertook a series of consultations and meetings with foreign governments which would be essential in creating the new institution, including the Soviet Union, Canada, and Britain, and the Charter of the United Nations was subsequently decided upon with the consent of President Roosevelt in June 1944.[23] The Informal Agenda Group was made up of six individuals, including Secretary of State Cordell Hull. All of them, with the exception of Hull, were Council members. President Roosevelt had referred to them as u201Cmy postwar advisers,u201D and aside from formal policy recommendations, they u201Cserved as advisers to the Secretary of State and the President on the final decisions.u201D By December 1943, a new member was added to the Group, Under Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., who was not only a Council member, but was also a former top executive at United States Steel and was the son of a partner in the J.P. Morgan Bank. After the Group had drafted the recommendations for a United Nations body, Secretary Hull had asked three lawyers to rule on its constitutionality. The three lawyers he chose were Charles Evan Hughes, John W. Davis, and Nathan L. Miller. Both Hughes and Davis were Council members, and John Davis was even a former President of the Council and remained as a Director.[24] John D. Rockefeller Jr. subsequently gifted the United Nations with $8.5 million in order to buy the land for its headquarters in New York City.[25]

NOTE: This was but a small sample from the chapter on the origins of the American Empire in the post-World War II world. The very same chapter includes the internal policy discussions relating to the formation of the Cold War, the establishment of the National Security State, and the advancement of policy programs aimed at securing the u201CGrand Areasu201D for American dominance around the world. The chapter also studies the emergence of the Marshall Plan, NATO, European integration, the Bilderberg Group, and a number of other institutions and ideas related to establishing and expanding a “New World Order.”

Endnotes

[1] Robert Kagan, u201CThe Benevolent Empire,u201D Foreign Policy (No. 111, Summer 1998), page 26.

[2] Ibid, page 28.

[3] Sebastian Mallaby, u201CThe Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire,u201D Foreign Affairs (Vol. 81, No. 2, March-April 2002), page 6.

[4] Ibid, page 2.

[5] Niall Ferguson, u201CThe Unconscious Colossus: Limits of (& Alternatives to) American Empire,u201D Daedalus (Vol. 134, No. 2, On Imperialism, Spring 2005), page 21.

[6] Ibid, pages 21-22.

[7] Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., u201CThe American Empire? Not so Fast,u201D World Policy Journal (Vol. 22, No. 1, Spring 2005), page 45.

[8] Michael Cox, u201CEmpire by Denial: The Strange Case of the United States,u201D International Affairs (Vol. 81, No. 1, January 2005), page 18.

[9] Geir Lundestad, u201C‘Empire by Invitation' in the American Century,u201D Diplomatic History (Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 1999), page 189.

[10] Bruce Cumings, u201CThe American Century and the Third World,u201D Diplomatic History (Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 1999), page 356.

[11] Ibid, pages 358-359.

[12] CFR, War and Peace. CFR History: http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/war_peace.html

[13] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), page 74.

[14] Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pages 43-45.

[15] Ibid, page 45.

[16] Ibid, page 46.

[17] Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (Authors Choice Press, New York: 2004), page 118.

[18] Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), page 48.

[19] Ibid, pages 49-51.

[20] Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (Authors Choice Press, New York: 2004), pages 166-167.

[21] Ibid, pages 168-169.

[22] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), page 159.

[23] Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), page 51.

[24] Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (Authors Choice Press, New York: 2004), pages 169-171.

[25] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), page 160.

Reprinted with permission from Andrew Gavin Marshall’s website.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project. Visit his website.

The Best of Andrew Gavin Marshall

The following is a sneak peak from a chapter in Marshall's upcoming book funded through The People's Book Project.

It is quite apparent in the history of America from the late 19th century and into the 20th century, that the Rockefeller family has wielded massive influence in shaping the socio-political economic landscape of society. However, up until the first half of the 20th century came to a close, there were several other large dominant families with whom the Rockefellers shared power and purpose, notably among them, the Morgans. As the century progressed, their interests aligned further still, and following World War II, the Rockefellers became the dominant group in America, and arguably, the world. Of course, there was the well-established business links between the major families emerging out of the American Industrial Revolution going into the 20th century, followed with the establishment of the major foundations designed to engage in social engineering. It was with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that the changing dynamics of the Morgan-Rockefeller clan became most apparent.

As discussed earlier in this book, the Council on Foreign Relations is the ultimate networking and socializing institution among the American elite. The influence of the CFR is unparalleled among other think tanks. One study revealed that between 1945 and 1972, roughly 45% of the top foreign policy officials who served in the United States government were also members of the Council, leading one prominent member to once state that membership in the Council is essentially a u201Crite of passageu201D for being a member of the foreign policy establishment. One Council member, Theodore White, explained that the Council's u201Croster of members has for a generation, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, been the chief recruiting ground for Cabinet-level officials in Washington.u201D[1]

The CIA, as previously examined, is also no stranger to this network, since more often than not in the first several decades of the existence of the Agency, its leaders were drawn from Council membership, such as Allen Dulles, John A. McCone, Richard Helms, William Colby, and George H.W. Bush. As some researchers have examined:

The influential but private Council, composed of several hundred of the country's top political, military, business, and academic leaders has long been the CIA's principal u201Cconstituencyu201D in the American public. When the agency has needed prominent citizens to front for its proprietary (cover) companies or for other special assistance, it has often turned to Council members.[2]

Roughly 42% of the top foreign policy positions in the Truman administration were filled by Council members, with 40% in the Eisenhower administration, 51% of the Kennedy administration, and 57% of the Johnson administration, many of whom were holdovers from the Kennedy administration.[3] The Council has had and continues to have enormous influence in the mainstream media, through which it is able to propagate its ideology, advance its agendas, and conceal its influence. In 1972, three out of ten directors and five out of nine executives of the New York Times were Council members. In the same year, one out of four editorial executives and four of nine directors of the Washington Post were also Council members, including its President, Katharine Graham, as well as the Vice-President Osborn Elliott, who was also editor-in-chief of Newsweek. Of both Time Magazine and Newsweek, almost half of their directors in 1972 were also Council members.[4]

The Council also has extensive ties to the other major American think tanks, most especially the Brookings Institution, as well as the RAND Corporation, the Hudson Institute, the Foreign Policy Association, and of course, the special-purpose foundations such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of which fifteen of its twenty-one trustees (as of 1971) were also Council members, and its president from 1950 to 1971, Joseph E. Johnson, was also a director of the Council during the same time period.[5]

The Council and the major philanthropic foundations have had extensive ties not only to each other, but in working together in constructing research and programs of study in foreign affairs. The State Department undertook a study of 191 university-connected centers for foreign affairs research, which revealed that the largest sources of funding came from the Ford Foundation (which funded 107 of the 191 centers), the federal government (which funded 67 centers), the Rockefeller Foundation (18 centers), and the Carnegie Corporation (17 centers), and that, u201Cfor eleven of the top twelve universities with institutes of international studies, Ford is the principal source of funding.u201D[6] These foundations, aside from being major sources of funding for the Council throughout the years from its origins, also share extensive leadership ties with the Council. At the top of the list is the Rockefeller Foundation, which in 1971 had fourteen out of nineteen of its directors also being members of the Council; the Carnegie Corporation followed with ten out of seventeen; then came the Ford Foundation with seven out of sixteen; and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund with six out of eleven board members also being members of the Council. It should also be noted that the Carnegie network extended beyond the Carnegie Corporation, and also included the Carnegie Endowment, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. From its founding until 1972, one-fourth of all the Council's directors had served as trustees or directors of at least one of the several Carnegie foundations. John J. McCloy had served as chairman of both the Council and the Ford Foundation at the same time, from the 1950s until the late 60s.[7]

Of all the networks associated with the Council, the most highly represented is the New York financial oligarchy. This broadly refers to the capitalist class, and more specifically the elite financial and banking groups. In a 1969 survey it was found that seven percent of the total membership of the Council are drawn from the propertied rich, with 33% more being top executives and directors of major corporations. Roughly 11% of Council members had relatives who were also members, and the most common occupation for members of the Council, at 40%, was in business. When adding in media corporations, the number reaches nearly 50%, with less than 1% representing labour or working class organizations.[8]

When it comes to Council leadership, the officers are almost exclusively drawn from membership of the ruling capitalist class, with 22% of Council directors having relatives who were also Council members. Financing for the Council has also been largely drawn from this group, primarily from foundations and corporations, as well as various investments and subscriptions to Foreign Affairs. When the Council got its own building in 1929, a Council director, Paul Warburg, contributed a significant portion, and John D. Rockefeller II contributed even more. When the Council moved into a larger building in 1945, the house was donated by Mrs. Harold Pratt, whose husband had made his fortune from the Rockefeller's Standard Oil enterprise, and John D. Rockefeller II contributed $150,000 for upkeep of the house. Between 1936 and 1946, funding from the major foundations averaged roughly $90,000 per year, mostly from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, who continued their funding into the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In 1953, the Ford Foundation made its first major contribution to the Council at $100,000 for a study of US-Soviet relations which was chaired by John J. McCloy. In that same year, McCloy became Chairman of the Council, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller-owned Chase Bank.[9]

Among the top corporations and banks represented in the Council (as of 1969/70) were: U.S. Steel (founded by J.P. Morgan in 1901 after acquiring Andrew Carnegie's steel companies for a hefty sum), Mobil Oil (now merged with Exxon), Standard Oil of New Jersey (later to be Exxon Mobil), IBM, ITT, General Electric, Du Pont, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan and Co. (now merged with Chase into J.P. Morgan Chase), First National City Bank, Chemical Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman, Bank of New York, Morgan Stanley, Kuhn Loeb, Lehman Brothers, and several others.[10]

The New York financial oligarchy could previously be divided into separate groups, notably among them, the Rockefeller group, Morgan group, Harriman group, the Lehman-Goldman, Sachs group, and a few select others. The Rockefeller group included: Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Bank of New York, Equitable Life, Metropolitan Life, Mobil Oil, Kuhn, Loeb, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy (law firm), and Standard Oil. The Morgan group included: J.P. Morgan and Co., Morgan Stanley, New York Life, Mutual of New York, Davis, Polk (law firm), U.S. Steel, General Electric, and IBM. As Laurence Shoup and William Minter examined in their book on the Council:

At the Council's origin and until the early 1950s, the most prominent place within the Council was held by men tied to Morgan interests. Since the 1950s the Rockefeller interests have taken the major role in directing Council affairs.[11]

The Council, while always representative of Rockefeller interests, had seemed to officially pass from Morgan hands into those of the Rockefeller family in 1953. Three of John D. Rockefeller II's sons, John D. III, Nelson, and David joined the Council in the late 30s and early 40s, and David became a director in 1949. From 1953 until 1971, George S. Franklin became executive director of the Council. Franklin was a college roommate of David Rockefeller's, and they were related by marriage, and he had worked at the law firm of Davis, Polk (within the Morgan group), before becoming an assistant to Nelson Rockefeller. In 1950, David Rockefeller became a vice-president, and John J. McCloy, a long-time representative of the Rockefeller group, became chairman of the Council in 1953, as well as chairman of the Rockefeller's Chase Bank. It could also be said that the Rockefeller group overtook the Ford group around this time, as indicative of McCloy taking position as chairman of the Ford Foundation in the same year (while also being a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation). In the following years, several leadership positions in the Council were drawn from organizations within the Rockefeller group. John W. Davis, Robert Roosa, and Bill Moyers were all Council leaders who were connected with the Rockefeller Foundation.[12]

As the years and decades passed, the Rockefeller group became even more powerful and dominant within the American establishment and indeed around the world, firmly establishing itself alongside the Rothschild family as the principle dynastic rulers of the globalized world. Of course, there were and still are several connections between these dynastic ruling families, perhaps so much so that it may be difficult to entirely differentiate between them. Both were involved in the founding and remain involved in the leadership of the Bilderberg Group. In the 1970s, however, it became apparent that the Rockefellers had certainly become the most influential dynasty in America, if not the world (as America was and remains the imperial hegemon of the world). More specifically, David Rockefeller arose as perhaps the most influential man in America, if not the world.

David Rockefeller graduated from Harvard in 1936, and then went to school at the London School of Economics, where he first met John F. Kennedy, and had even dated JKF's sister, Kathleen.[13] During World War II, David Rockefeller served in North Africa and France, working for military intelligence.[14] In 1947, he became a member of the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a major international think tank, a job that was offered to him by the Carnegie's President, Alger Hiss. Other members of the board included John Foster Dulles, who in 1953 would become Secretary of State; Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1953 would become President; and Thomas J. Watson, the CEO of IBM.[15] Thomas J. Watson had previously overseen IBM's deep business relationship with Hitler in providing the technological machinery for organizing the Holocaust.[16] In 1949, David joined the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1946, he had joined Chase Bank, and through the years rose up to becoming President in 1960, and became Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan in 1969.

David Rockefeller had long family ties to the Dulles brothers, whom he knew personally since his college years.[17] Allen Dulles had been the CIA Director and John Foster Dulles was Eisenhower's Secretary of State. David was also associated with Richard Helms, former top CIA official, as well as Archibald Roosevelt, Jr., a former CIA agent who worked with Chase Manhattan, and whose brother, Kermit Roosevelt was another CIA agent who had been responsible for organizing the 1953 coup in Iran.[18] David Rockefeller also developed close ties with a former CIA agent, William Bundy, who was close to CIA Director Allen Dulles, and who later served in both the Defense Department and the State Department in the JFK and Lyndon Johnson administrations, where he was a pivotal adviser on matters related to the Vietnam War. In 1971, one year following David Rockefeller becoming Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Bundy was invited by David to become the editor of Foreign Affairs, the influential journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, which he then ran for 11 years.[19] David had also been extensively briefed on covert intelligence operations by various CIA division chiefs at the direction of Director Allen Dulles, David's u201Cfriend and confidante.u201D[20]

Thus, in the early 1970s, David Rockefeller has risen to a position of great influence as Chairman of the Council and Chase Manhattan, placing him at the centre of the network which defines, designs, and profits from America's imperial interests. Thus, the international situation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, of a general feeling of American imperial decline, competition increasing and cooperation decreasing between the major industrialized nations, and the general independence and liberations struggles throughout the u2018Third World' and at home had created a general sense of oligarchic uncertainty. Of particular interest, and much more so to a banker, was the international functions of the debt market, specifically for the u2018Third World' nations. As examined in Holly Sklar's book, Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management:

West European and Japanese firms invaded the U.S. market and competed for the growing Third World market. Moreover, European nations began to give aid and loans to Third World nations, becoming an alternative source of aid and strengthening economic ties to their former colonies. Third World nations began to use U.S. aid to repay debts to Western Europe or relied on U.S. aid to offset chronic balance-of-payments shortages incurred, in part, through buying European products. In effect, the U.S. saw itself as paying for Third World importation of European and Japanese goods… In short, the problem from the perspective of the U.S. was that the situation then unfolding gave Third World borrowing nations too much freedom to manipulate the system, to the partial advantage of Western Europe and the Third World and to the definite disadvantage of the U.S. … In particular, the U.S. was concerned with extending its economic (and political) hegemony over the emerging Third World politically-independent nations without creating undue tensions with Western Europe and Japan.[21]

Naturally, these concerns raised the importance and the increasing potential behind institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, themselves products of the Council on Foreign Relations. Various proposals began to emerge in u2018reforming' these institutions to meet the changing international circumstances. One proposal was to increase the practice of what was referred to as u2018tied' aid: u201Caid to a country under the conditions that it be used by the country to buy U.S. goods and services.u201D Another proposal favoured cooperation among the major industrial nations, a u201Cconsortium approach to aid, which involved increased coordination among donor nations about scheduling payments due them by recipient nations.u201D Further, u201Ceach donor nation would refuse to grant aid except on terms identical to those of other donor nations in the consortium.u201D A third proposal, gaining in popularity, was referred to as u201Cprogram aid,u201D which was u201Caid given with definite stipulations, often within the context of an overall program of economic planning, to which a recipient nation had to agree in order to obtain the aid or loans.u201D[22] George Ball, a long-time Council member and Bilderberg participant, was Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, said in 1967 that, u201Cthe political boundaries of nation-states are too narrow and constricted to define the scope and activities of modern business.u201D[23]

This was the context in which Zbigniew Brzezinski, then a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg group, had written his book, Between Two Ages, in which he called for the creation of a u2018Community of Developed Nations.' David Rockefeller had taken note of Brzezinski's writings, and was u201Cgetting worried about the deteriorating relations between the U.S., Europe, and Japan,u201D as a result of Nixon's economic shocks. In 1972, David Rockefeller and Brzezinski u201Cpresented the idea of a trilateral grouping at the annual Bilderberg meeting,u201D which was rejected on the idea of not wanting to admit the Japanese into the Bilderberg group. Many Europeans did not want to include the Japanese at the high table. In July of 1972, seventeen powerful people met at David Rockefeller's estate in New York to plan for the creation of the Commission. At the meeting were Brzezinski, McGeorge Bundy, the President of the Ford Foundation, (brother of William Bundy, editor of Foreign Affairs) and Bayless Manning, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.[24] So, in 1973, the Trilateral Commission was formed to address these issues. Initial funding to set up the Commission came from David Rockefeller and the Ford Foundation.[25] For the first several years, most of the Commission's funding came from foundations, with increasing support from major corporations, which contributed roughly 12% of its funding in 1973-76, to roughly 50% in 1984.[26] Thus, in the 1970s David Rockefeller rose to an even more prominent international position, simultaneously holding a leadership position within the Bilderberg Group, and being Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was the Executive Director of the Trilateral Commission, and at the same time served as a director of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Trilateral Commission acted as an organization through which u2018hegemony of consent' could be organized, particularly that of socializing elites from the u2018trilateral' nations to one another, integrating their views, ideologies, objectives, and methods just as think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations have done within the United States. As the CFR acts domestically, the Trilateral Commission acts internationally (at least with the leading industrial nations of the North). The first European Chairman of the Commission, Max Kohnstamm, emphasized the role of u2018intellectuals' in the construction of hegemony within the Commission:

This, which must be done by absolutely first-rate intellectuals will tend to become irrelevant unless it is done in constant checking with those who are in power or who have a considerable influence on those in power. It seems to me that the linkage between the kind of people we must get for our Trilateral Commission and the intellectuals doing the indispensable work of thinking about the elements for a new system is of the greatest importance. A Trilateral Commission without the intellectuals will become very soon a second-class negotiating forum. The intellectuals not being forced to test their ideas constantly with the establishment of our world will tend to become abstract and therefore useless… [It must be] the joint effort of our very best minds and a group of really influential citizens in our respective countries.[27]

In a 1972 speech at the Bilderberg meeting at which David Rockefeller proposed (alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski) the establishment of the Trilateral Commission, he stated that the Commission would be u201Cbringing the best brains in the world to bear on the problems of the future… to collect and synthesize the knowledge that would enable a new generation to rebuild the conceptual framework of foreign and domestic policies.u201D[28]

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project.

Notes

[1] Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (Authors Choice Press, New York: 2004), pages 58-59.

[2] Ibid, pages 60-62.

[3] Ibid, pages 62-64.

[4] Ibid, pages 66-67.

[5] Ibid, pages 66-70.

[6] Ibid, pages 77-78.

[7] Ibid, pages 78-79.

[8] Ibid, pages 86-88.

[9] Ibid, pages 92-95.

[10] Ibid, pages 97-98.

[11] Ibid, pages 102-104.

[12] Ibid, pages 106-107.

[13] David Rockefeller, Memoirs. (New York: Random House, 2002), page 85.

[14] Ibid, page 113.

[15] Ibid, pages 149-151.

[16] Richard Bernstein, u2018I.B.M. and the Holocaust': Assessing the Culpability. The New York Times: March 7, 2001.

[17] David Rockefeller, Memoirs. (New York: Random House, 2002), page 149.

[18] Ibid, page 363.

[19] Obituaries, William Bundy. The Telegraph: October 9, 2000.

[20] Cary Reich, The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer 1908-1958. (New York: Doubleday, 1996), page 559.

[21] Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management (South End Press, Boston: 1980), page 472.

[22] Ibid, pages 472-473.

[23] Ibid, pages 474-475.

[24] Ibid, pages 76-78.

[25] Stephen Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge University Press: New York, 1990), page 141.

[26] Ibid, page 165.

[27] Ibid, page 52.

[28] Ibid, page 117.

Reprinted with permission from Andrew Gavin Marshall’s website.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project. Visit his website.

This is Part 2 of "Pakistan in Pieces." Part 1: Imperial Eye on Pakistan

The AfPak War Theatre: Establishing the New Strategy

As Senator Obama became the President-elect Obama, his foreign policy strategy on Afghanistan was already being formed. In 2007, Obama took on veteran geostrategist and Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski as one of his top foreign policy advisers, and he remained his foreign policy adviser throughout 2008. On Obama’s campaign, he announced that as President, he would scale down the war in Iraq, and focus the “War on Terror” on Afghanistan, promising “to send in about 10,000 more troops and to strike next-door Pakistan, if top terrorists are spotted there.”

In October of 2008, before the Presidential elections, “senior Bush administration officials gathered in secret with Afghanistan experts from NATO and the United Nations,” to deliver a message to advisers of McCain and Obama to tell them that, “the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse,” and “that the next president needed to have a plan for Afghanistan before he took office,” or else, “it could be too late.” Both McCain and Obama had agreed to a troop increase for Afghanistan, essentially ensuring the “continuity of empire” from one administration to the next.

A week after winning the election, Obama invited one of Hillary Clinton’s top supporters and advisers to meet with him. Richard Holbrooke, who had worked in every Democratic administration since John F. Kennedy, “which extended from the Vietnam War, in the sixties, to the Balkan conflicts of the nineties,” was Clinton’s Ambassador to the United Nations for the last year and a half of the Clinton administration. Obama had decided “that Holbrooke should take on the hardest foreign-policy problem that the Administration faced: Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Holbrooke wrote in March of 2008, before Obama won the Presidency, that, “The conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize,” and it “will eventually become the longest in American history.”

The position Holbrooke was to receive in the Obama administration was one created specifically for him. He was to become a “special representative” to the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan:

[I]n addition to being an emissary to the region, Holbrooke would run operations on the civilian side of American policy. He would create a rump regional bureau within the State Department, carved out of the Bureau of South and Central Asia, whose Afghanistan and Pakistan desks would report directly to him. He would assemble outside experts and officials from various government agencies to work for him, and he would report to the President through Hillary Clinton. Clinton told Holbrooke that he would be the civilian counterpart to General David Petraeus, the military head of Central Command.

Holbrooke was thus placed in charge of “Af-Pak”, a term of his own creation, “to make the point that the two countries could not be dealt with separately,” which was then adopted into official parlance.

In November of 2008, the Washington Post reported that while Obama was considering giving the position of Secretary of State (which he then did), he was also discussing giving General James L. Jones the position of National Security Adviser, which he subsequently did. The article stated that, “Obama is considering expanding the scope of the job to give the adviser the kind of authority once wielded by powerful figures such as Henry A. Kissinger.” James Jones was a former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant.

Jones as NATO commander was pivotal in assembling troops for the war in Afghanistan, and at the time of his nomination as NSA (National Security Adviser), he headed “the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.” The official statement of purpose for the Institute for 21st Century Energy is:

to unify energy policymakers, regulators, business leaders, and the American public behind a common sense strategy that ensures affordable, reliable, and diverse energy supplies, improves environmental stewardship, promotes economic growth, and strengthens national security.

Jones earned $900,000 in salary from the Chamber of Commerce, and got $330,000 from serving on the board of Boeing and $290,000 for serving on the board of Chevron upon his resignations of those positions to become National Security Adviser. In October of 2010, Jones was replaced as National Security Advisor by Tom Donilon.

On February 8, 2009, within weeks of being installed as NSA, Jones gave a speech at the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy, in which he stated:

As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. [Henry] Kissinger, filtered down through Generaal Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today.

He then elaborated on the purpose and restructuring of the National Security Council under the Obama administration. He stated that the NSC “must be strategic” in that, “we won’t effectively advance the priorities if we spend our time reacting to events, instead of shaping them. And that requires strategic thinking.” He further stated that:

the NSC today works very closely with President Obama’s National Economic Council, which is led by Mr. Larry Summers, so that our response to the economic crisis is coordinated with our global partners and our national security needs.

Shortly after taking office, Obama set up a two-month White House strategic review of Afghanistan and Pakistan, to be headed by Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and scholar at the Brookings Institution, and “Riedel will report to Obama and to retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr., the national security advisor,” and was to work very closely with Richard Holbrooke in drafting the policy review.

In February of 2009, Henry Kissinger wrote an article for the Washington Post describing the strategy America should undertake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, emphasizing the role of “security” over the aim of “reform” of the Afghan government, stating that, “Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security – but it cannot be the precondition for it.” Militarily, Kissinger recommended the “control of Kabul and the Pashtun area,” which stretches from Afghanistan to the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan province in Pakistan. When it came to the issue of Pakistan, Kissinger wrote:

The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan’s leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries – or continued impotence with respect to them – will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom.

Following the policy review, on March 27, Obama announced the administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, decidedly to make it a dual strategy: the AfPak strategy. Obama promised “to send lawyers and agricultural experts to Afghanistan to reform its government and economy, and to offer seven and a half billion dollars in new aid for schools, roads, and democracy in Pakistan.”

Holbrooke had a staff of 30 in the State Department, and “nine government agencies, including the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the Defense and Treasury Departments, and two foreign countries, Britain and Canada, [were] represented in the office.” General David Patraeus, then Commander of U.S. CENTCOM (the Pentagon’s Central Command with authority over the Middle East, Egypt and Central Asia), along with then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, and Richard Holbrooke worked together and “pressured General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani Army, to push back against the Taliban in Swat,” which had the effect of precipitating the internal displacement of more than 2 million people.

Changing Strategy, Changing Command

In January of 2009, shortly after Obama took office, he announced that his administration “picked Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, a former top military commander in Afghanistan, to be the next United States ambassador to Kabul,” of which the New York Times said:

Tapping a career Army officer who will soon retire from the service to fill one of the country’s most sensitive diplomatic jobs is a highly unusual choice.

Further, the General had “repeatedly warned that the United States could not prevail in Afghanistan and defeat global terrorism without addressing the havens that fighters with Al Qaeda had established in neighboring Pakistan,” which is parallel to the new strategy in Afghanistan. His appointment “has the backing of Richard C. Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

On May 11, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired General David D. McKiernan, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which commands all NATO forces in Afghanistan. Gates stated that, “It’s time for new leadership and fresh eyes,” and that it was the Pentagon command which recommended the White House fire McKiernan, including Gates, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mullen and McKiernan’s military boss, General Patraeus, Commander of CENTCOM.

There has been much speculation as to the reasons for his firing, and it is a significant question to ask, as the firing of a General in the field is a rarity in the American experience. The general view pushed by the Pentagon was that it was due to a matter of “consistency,” as in changing strategies and changing ambassadors, it was also necessary to change Generals. While McKiernan was focused on military means and tactics, the strategy required counter-insurgency tactics. It was reported that, “McKiernan was overly cautious in creating U.S.-backed local militias, a tactic that Petraeus had employed when he was the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.”

One Washington Post article made the claim that the push to fire McKiernan came initially and most forcefully from the Chairman of the JCS Mullen, and that Gates agreed and lobbied Obama to fire him. The reasoning was that McKiernan was “too deferential to NATO” in that he wasn’t able to properly manage the NATO forces in Afghanistan, and lacked the political fortitude to manage both military and political affairs.

The official reason for the firing was mostly to facilitate alignment with the new strategy requiring a new military commander, which is likely true. However, it requires an understanding of the new strategy as well as a look at who was sent in to replace McKiernan where you realize the true nature of his being fired. [Note: McChrystal himself was later fired in 2010 after publicly speaking out against top administration officials].

McKiernan was replaced with Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, former Commander of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the highly secretive command of U.S. Special Forces operations. As the Washington Post pointed out, his appointment “marks the continued ascendancy of officers who have pressed for the use of counterinsurgency tactics, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that are markedly different from the Army’s traditional doctrine.”

The new AfPak strategy, which McChrystal would oversee, “relies on the kind of special forces and counterinsurgency tactics McChrystal knows well, as well as nonmilitary approaches to confronting the Taliban. It would hinge success in the seven-year-old war to political and other conditions across the border in Pakistan.”

In March of 2009, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that the U.S. military was running an “executive assassination ring” during the Bush years, and that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was running it, and that, “It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” and that, “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office… Congress has no oversight of it.” He elaborated:

Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

Hersh appeared on Amy Goodman’s program, Democracy Now, to further discuss the program, of which he stated:

There’s more – at least a dozen countries and perhaps more. The President has authorized these kinds of actions in the Middle East and also in Latin America, I will tell you, Central America, some countries. They’ve been – our boys have been told they can go and take the kind of executive action they need, and that’s simply – there’s no legal basis for it.

At the time this news story broke, it was reported that the JSOC commander at the time, “ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower are jeopardizing broader goals there.” The halt lasted a total of two weeks, and “came after a series of nighttime raids by Special Operations troops in recent months killed women and children.”

All of this is very concerning, considering that the new Commander of NATO operations in Afghanistan, was the former head of the “executive assassination ring.” Having run JSOC between 2003 and 2008, McChrystal “built a sophisticated network of soldiers and intelligence operatives,” which conducted operations and assassinations in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan.”

In June it was reported that McChrystal was “given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans, as he moves to carry out an ambitious new strategy.” He was reported to be assembling a corps of 400 officers and soldiers “who will rotate between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years.” The New York Times referred to this strategy as “unknown in the military today outside Special Operations.” The Times further reported that McChrystal:

picked the senior intelligence adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, to join him in Kabul as director of intelligence there. In Washington, Brig. Gen. Scott Miller, a longtime Special Operations officer now assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff but who had served previously under General McChrystal, is now organizing a new Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell.

In June of 2006, Newsweek referred to McChrystal’s JSOC as being a “part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to ‘work the dark side’ after 9/11.” McChrystal also happened to be a Fellow at Harvard and the Council on Foreign Relations.

As it was later revealed, the CIA had been running – from 2002 onwards – a force of roughly 3,000 elite paramilitary Afghans, purportedly to hunt al-Qaeda and the Taliban for the CIA. Used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and actual operations, many in the force have been trained by the CIA in the United States, and their operations and numbers have expanded since the new strategy involving Pakistan was put in place. The paramilitary force – or terrorists, depending upon one’s perspective – are undertaking covert operations inside Pakistan, often working directly with U.S. Special Forces. It must be remembered that during the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s when the CIA was funding, arming and training the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviets – late to become known as ‘al-Qaeda’ – they were, at the time, referred to as “freedom fighters,” just as the terrorist death squads were referred to in Nicaragua. Thus, the nomenclature of “paramilitary force” must be viewed with suspicion as to what the group is actually doing: covert operations, surveillance, assassinations, etc., which by many definitions would make them a terrorist outfit.

In May of 2009, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was reported as saying that a US military offensive in southern Afghanistan could have the effect of pushing militants and Taliban into Pakistan, “whose troops are already struggling to combat militants.” Chairman Mike Mullen stated that this means that Pakistan “could face even greater turmoil in the months ahead.” This was based off of a US surge of troops in Afghanistan. Senator Russ Feingold said that, “We may end up further destabilizing Pakistan without providing substantial lasting improvements in Afghanistan,” and that, “Weak civilian governments, an increased number of militants and an expanded U.S. troop presence could be a recipe for disaster for those nations in the region as well as our own nation’s security.” Mullen responded to the Senator’s concerns by stating, “Can I… (be) 100 percent certain that won’t destabilize Pakistan? I don’t know the answer to that.”

But of course, the answer is in fact, certain; and it’s an unequivocal “yes”. These remarks were made following the surge of an additional 21,000 US troops to Afghanistan in March. In the beginning of May, Pakistan launched a military offensive against the Taliban in Swat and other areas of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), after a peace deal broke down between them, “forcing more than two million people from their homes.” It was further reported that:

Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has told U.S. officials he’s worried not only about Taliban moving across the border, but also the possibility that U.S. forces could prompt an exodus of refugees from southern Afghanistan.

In May, Holbrooke and the American military establishment had pressured the Pakistani government to undertake the offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley, which led to the displacement of more than 2 million people. As the New Yorker put it, Holbrooke “was mapping out a new vision for American interests in a volatile region, as his old friend Henry Kissinger had done in Southeast Asia. And he was positioning himself to be a mediator in an international conflict, as he had done in the Balkans.”

In September of 2009 a classified report written by General McChrystal was leaked, in which he had concluded, “that a successful counterinsurgency strategy will require 500,000 troops over five years.” It was further reported in September that, “the CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence ‘surge’ that will make its station there among the largest in the agency’s history,” rivaling its stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. The initiative began “under pressure from Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal,” and the extra personnel are being employed in a number of ways, including teaming up with Special Forces troops in “pursuing high-value targets.” Further:

The intelligence expansion goes beyond the CIA to involve every major spy service, officials said, including the National Security Agency, which intercepts calls and e-mails, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks military threats.

In October of 2009, it was reported by the Washington Post that although Obama announced a troop surge in Afghanistan of 21,000 additional troops, “in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized – and the Pentagon is deploying – at least 13,000 troops beyond that number.” It was reported that these additional forces were primarily made up of “support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police.” Thus, it brings the total 2009 surge in Afghanistan to 34,000 US troops. Thus as of October 2009, there were 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan (more than double the amount of when Bush left office), and 124,000 US troops in Iraq.

In early October, Henry Kissinger wrote an article for Newsweek in which he proposed a strategy for the US in Afghanistan, in which he initially made it clear that he supported General McChrystal’s proposal of sending an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. Kissinger proclaimed that calls for an “exit strategy” were a “metaphor for withdrawal,” which is tantamount to “abandonment.” Clearly, Kissinger favours a long-term presence. He stated that even a victory “may not permit troop withdrawals,” citing the case of South Korea. Kissinger further wrote on the options for Afghan strategy, stating:

A negotiation with the [Taliban] might isolate Al Qaeda and lead to its defeat, in return for not challenging the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan. After all, it was the Taliban which provided bases for Al Qaeda in the first place.

This theory seems to me to be too clever by half. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are unlikely to be able to be separated so neatly geographically. It would also imply the partition of Afghanistan along functional lines, for it is highly improbable that the civic actions on which our policies are based could be carried out in areas controlled by the Taliban. Even so-called realists – like me – would gag at a tacit U.S. cooperation with the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan.

Kissinger further claimed that a reduction of forces in Afghanistan would “fundamentally affect domestic stability in Pakistan by freeing the Qaeda forces along the Afghan border for even deeper incursions into Pakistan, threatening domestic chaos,” and that, “the prospects of world order will be greatly affected by whether our strategy comes to be perceived as a retreat from the region, or a more effective way to sustain it.”

He further explained that any attempts to “endow the central government with overriding authority” could produce resistance, which would “be ironic if, by following the received counterinsurgency playbook too literally, we produced another motive for civil war.” Kissinger thus proposed a strategy not aimed at “control from Kabul,” but rather, “emphasis needs to be given to regional efforts and regional militia.” Kissinger explained the regional importance of Afghanistan, and thus, the “challenge” of American strategy:

The special aspect of Afghanistan is that it has powerful neighbors or near neighbors – Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran. Each is threatened in one way or another and, in many respects, more than we are by the emergence of a base for international terrorism: Pakistan by Al Qaeda; India by general jihadism and specific terror groups; China by fundamentalist Shiite jihadists in Xinjiang; Russia by unrest in the Muslim south; even Iran by the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. Each has substantial capacities for defending its interests. Each has chosen, so far, to stand more or less aloof.

In November of 2009, Malalai Joya, a former Afghan MP and one of the few female political leaders in Afghanistan, said that:

Eight years ago, the U.S. and NATO – under the banner of women’s rights, human rights, and democracy – occupied my country and pushed us from the frying pan into the fire . . . Eight years is enough to know better about the corrupt, mafia system of [President] Hamid Karzai . . . My people are crushed between two powerful enemies . . . From the sky, occupation forces bomb and kill civilians…and on the ground, the Taliban and warlords continue their crimes . . . It is better that they leave my country; my people are that fed up . . . Occupation will never bring liberation, and it is impossible to bring democracy by war.

In late November, Pakistani Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani warned “that the US’s decision to send thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan may destabilize his country,” as it would likely lead to “a spill over of militants inside Pakistan.” In particular, it could force militants and Taliban to migrate into Pakistan’s southern province of Balochistan.

On December 1, President Obama announced that the U.S. would send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan by summer 2010, and with a “plan” to purportedly withdraw by July 2011. As the Washington Post reported, “adding 30,000 U.S. troops to the roughly 70,000 that are in Afghanistan now amounts to most of what Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces there, requested at the end of August.” Obama stated that the chief objective was to “destroy al-Qaeda,” and a senior administration official said that, “the goal for the Afghan army, for example, is to increase its ranks from 90,000 to 134,000 by the end of 2010.”

President Karzai said in early December that, “Afghanistan’s security forces will need U.S. support for another 15 to 20 years,” and that, “it would take five years for his forces to assume responsibility for security throughout the country.” This statement supports the conclusions set out in McChrystal’s classified report, which stated that the US would need to remain for at least 5 years.

Seth Jones, a civilian adviser to the U.S. military and senior political scientist at RAND Corporation, one of America’s top defense think tanks, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in December titled, “Take the War to Pakistan.” He stated that the U.S. is repeating the same mistakes of the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s by not attacking the Taliban “sanctuary” in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. He stated that, “This sanctuary is critical because the Afghan war is organized and run out of Baluchistan.” He then proclaimed that, “the United States and Pakistan must target Taliban leaders in Baluchistan,” which could include conducting raids into Pakistani territory or hit Taliban leaders with drone strikes.

As Jeremy Scahill reported in June 2009, “more than 240,000 contractor employees, about 80 percent of them foreign nationals, are working in Iraq and Afghanistan to support operations and projects of the U.S. military, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.” Scahill reported on the findings of a Defense Department report on contracting work in the war zones, stating that, “there has been a 23% increase in the number of ‘Private Security Contractors’ working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which ‘correlates to the build up of forces’ in the country.” While contractors outnumbered forces in Afghanistan, in Iraq they were roughly equal to the US forces occupying the country, at 130,000.

It was reported that as Obama ordered more troops to Afghanistan in December of 2009, a new surge of contractors would follow suit. As of June 2009, the number of contractors in Afghanistan outweighed the US military presence itself, with 73,968 contractors and 55,107 troops. According to different estimates, “Between 7% and 16% of the total are Blackwater-style private security contractors.” As of December 2009, the number of contractors in Afghanistan was reported to be 104,100.

In January of 2010, as Obama’s announced 30,000 extra troops began to be deployed to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials became increasingly fearful that “a stepped-up war just over the border could worsen the increasingly bloody struggle with militancy” within Pakistan itself, ultimately further destabilizing Pakistan’s southwestern border and the “already volatile tribal areas in the northwest.” On top of sending militants into Pakistan, there were fears that it would exacerbate the flow of Afghan refugees into Pakistani territory.

Blackwater and the “Secret War” in Pakistan

In November of 2009, investigative journalist and best-selling author Jeremy Scahill wrote an exclusive report on the secret war of the United States in Pakistan. The story sheds light on the American strategy in the region aimed at the destabilization and ultimately the implosion of Pakistan. The chief architects and administrators of this policy in Pakistan are none other than the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), previously run as an “executive assassination ring” by General McChrystal, and the infamous mercenary organization, Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. JSOC and Blackwater work together covertly in undertaking a covert war in yet another nation in the region, adding to the list of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Scahill described the covert operations as “targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives,” as well as “other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.” Further, “the Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes.” The sources for the report are drawn heavily from individuals within the US military intelligence apparatus. One source revealed that the program is so “compartmentalized” that “senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.” This program is also separate from the CIA’s own programs, including both drone attacks and assassinations, of which the CIA assassination program was said to be cancelled in June of 2009.

It was in 2006 that JSOC reached an agreement with the Pakistani government to run operations within the country, back when Stanley McChrystal was running it in close cooperation with Vice President Dick Cheney as an “executive assassination ring.” A former Blackwater executive confirmed that Blackwater was operating in Pakistan in cooperation with both the CIA and JSOC, as well as being on a subcontract for the Pakistani government itself, as well as “working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan.”

JSOC’s covert program in liaison with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to 2007, and the operations are coordinated out of the US Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and that Blackwater operates at “an ultra-exclusive level above top secret.” The contracts are all kept secret, and therefore “shielded from public oversight.” On top of carrying out operations for JSOC and the CIA inside Pakistan, Blackwater further conducts operations in Uzbekistan.

In regards to the drone strikes within Pakistan, while largely reported as being a part of the CIA drone program, many are, in fact, undertaken under a covert parallel JSOC program. One intelligence source told Jeremy Scahill that, “when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes.” Further, Blackwater is involved in the drone strike program with JSOC, “Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don’t care. If there’s one person they’re going after and there’s thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That’s the mentality.” Blackwater further provides security for many secret US drone bases, as well as JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) camps within Pakistan.

With General McChrystal’s rise from JSOC Commander to Commander of the Afghan war theatre (which in military-strategic terms now includes Pakistan under the umbrella of “AfPak”), “there is a concomitant rise in JSOC’s power and influence within the military structure.” McChrystal had overseen JSOC during the majority of the Bush years, where he worked very closely and directly with Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As Seymour Hersh had exposed, JSOC operated as an “executive assassination ring” and had caused many problematic diplomatic situations for the United States, as even the State Department wasn’t informed about their operations. One high-level State Department official was quoted as saying:

The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, ‘Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?’ So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him – we rendered him home.

Blackwater is also involved in providing “security for a US-backed aid project” in a region of Pakistan, which implies that even some aid projects are connected with military and intelligence operations, often using them as a cover for covert operations. Blackwater still operates in Afghanistan working for the US military, the State Department and the CIA. As one military-intelligence official stated:

Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we’re going to go as a nation that are dangerous.

Mmuch of Scahill’s information has been supported by other mainstream news sources. In August of 2009, the New York Times reported that in 2004, the CIA “hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda.” The CIA had held high-level meetings with Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince. The article also revealed that in 2002, Blackwater had been awarded the contract to handle security for the CIA station in Afghanistan, “and the company maintains other classified contracts with the C.I.A.” Blackwater has hired several former CIA officials, “including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.”

On December 10, 2009, the New York Times reported that in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Blackwater “participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities – clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents.” These raids, referred to as “snatch and grab” operations, occurred almost nightly between 2004 and 2006, and that, “involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred.” One former CIA official was quoted as saying, “There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency.” Further, Blackwater was reported to have provided security not only for the CIA station in Afghanistan, but also in Iraq; and in both countries, Blackwater “personnel accompanied the [CIA] officers even on offensive operations sometimes begun in conjunction with Delta Force or Navy Seals teams.”

In late August it was reported that Blackwater had a CIA contract to operate the remotely piloted drones, carried out at “hidden bases” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as provide security at the bases. In December, the New York Times ran a story reporting that the CIA had terminated its contract with Blackwater “that allowed the company to load bombs on C.I.A. drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” However, while the CIA claimed that all Blackwater contracts were under review, a CIA spokesperson said that, “At this time, Blackwater is not involved in any C.I.A. operations other than in a security or support role,” which is still a very wide role, considering how the roles have been blurred between providing “security” and actively taking part in missions.

As the Guardian reported in December of 2009, Blackwater had a contract in Pakistan “to manage the construction of a training facility for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, just outside Peshawar,” which is the Pakistani Army’s paramilitary force. Despite a continual official denial of Blackwater involvement in Pakistan, in December, the CIA admitted Blackwater operates in Pakistan under CIA contracts, and in January of 2010, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that both Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) and DynCorp have been operating in Pakistan.

However, some reports indicate that Blackwater may be involved in even more nefarious activities inside Pakistan. A former head of Pakistani’s intelligence services, the ISI, stated in an interview that apart from simply taking part in drone attacks, Blackwater “may be involved in actions that destabilize the country.” Elaborating, he said, “My assessment is that they [Blackwater agents] – either themselves or most probably through others, through the locals – do carry out some of the explosions,” and that, “the idea is to carry out such actions, like carrying attacks in the civilian areas to make the others look bad in the eyes of the public.” In other words, according to the former head of the ISI, Blackwater may be involved in committing false flag terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.

In November of 2009, Al-Jazeera reported that while many attacks occurring across Pakistan are blamed on the Tehreek e-Taliban, Pakistan’s Taliban, “the group has issued its first video statement denying involvement in targeting civilians and has blamed external forces for at least two recent blasts.” The denial stated that the attacks are being used as an excuse to prepare for military operations in various tribal regions of Pakistan, including South Waziristan. The denial also stated that the Pakistani Taliban “had no role in the bomb blast in a Peshawar market that killed at least 100 people as well as an attack in Charsada, a town located in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.” The spokesperson claimed that the Pakistani Taliban does not target civilians, and that the bombings were “linked to Blackwater activities in the country.” Even when the bombings initially occurred the Taliban denied involvement, and the local media was blaming “Blackwater and other American agencies.”

The head of the Pakistani Taliban had previously stated that, “if Taliban can carry out attacks in Islamabad and target Pakistan army’s headquarters, then why should they target general public,” and proceeded to blame the bomb blast in Peshawar that killed 108 people on “Blackwater and Pakistani agencies [that] are involved in attacks in public places to blame the militants.” He was further quoted as saying, “Our war is against the government and the security forces and not against the people. We are not involved in blasts.”

In January of 2010, it was reported that Blackwater “is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan’s troubled national police force,” as Blackwater already “trains the Afghan border police – an arm of the national police – and drug interdiction units in volatile southern Afghanistan.”

As Jeremy Scahill reported in August of 2009 on a legal case against Blackwater, where a former Blackwater mercenary and an ex-US Marine “have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia.” Among the claims:

The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince’s companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

Further, both men stated that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq, often on Erik Prince’s private planes. These allegations surfaced in a trial against Blackwater for committing human rights violations and war crimes in Iraq against civilians. One of those who testified further stated that, “On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince’s employ, Mr. Prince’s management has personally threatened me with death and violence.” The testimony continued in explaining that:

Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.

Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."

In January of 2010, Erik Prince, the controversial founder and CEO of Blackwater gave an interview with Vanity Fair magazine which was intended to not simply discuss the company, but also the man behind the company. It begins by quoting Prince as saying, “I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” and continued, “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.” It is worth quoting the article at some length:

Publicly, [Erik Prince] has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas” – places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating – to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than $1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009 – by acting, among other things, as an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officials – Prince became a Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his indefatigable ambition – the very attributes that have galvanized his critics – also made him extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence.

Prince’s Afghan security team is the “special-projects” team of Blackwater, and “except for their language its men appear indistinguishable from Afghans. They have full beards, headscarves, and traditional knee-length shirts over baggy trousers.” In regards to Prince’s worth with the CIA, he:

wasn’t merely a contractor; he was, insiders say, a full-blown asset. Three sources with direct knowledge of the relationship say that the C.I.A.’s National Resources Division recruited Prince in 2004 to join a secret network of American citizens with special skills or unusual access to targets of interest.

In Afghanistan, Blackwater “provides security for the US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his staff, and trains narcotics and Afghan special police units.” There was also a revolving door of sorts between Blackwater and the CIA. Not only was Prince a CIA asset, but many higher-ups in the CIA would also move into Blackwater. A Blackwater-CIA team even hunted down an alleged Al-Qaeda financier in Hamburg, Germany, without even the German government’s awareness of it. Publicly, the Blackwater program with the CIA was canned. Although there was no mention of its covert program with JSOC in Pakistan, so one must assume its relationship is maintained in some capacity. Prince ultimately left his position at Blackwater in the face of bad press, but still controls the majority of the stock.

In September of 2009, General Mirza Aslam Beg, Pakistan’s former Army Chief, said that, “Blackwater was directly involved in the assassinations of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.” He told a Saudi Arabian daily that, “former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green light to carry out terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and Quetta.” It was in an interview with a Pakistani TV network when he stated that Blackwater and “the United States killed Benazir Bhutto.” Beg was chief of Army staff during Benazir Bhutto’s first administration. He claimed that she was killed “in an international conspiracy because she had decided to back out of the deal through which she had returned to the country after nine years in exile.”

Is the West Punishing Pakistan to Challenge China?

China and Pakistan established diplomatic ties in 1951, and have enjoyed a close relationship since then, with Pakistan being one of the first countries to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1950. One of the primary reasons behind the close and ever-closer relationship between China and Pakistan is the role of India, as both an adversary and competitor to Pakistan and China. A Pakistani ambassador to the United States said that for Pakistan, “China is a high-value guarantor of security against India.” Further, within India, increased Chinese military support to Pakistan is perceived as “a key aspect of Beijing’s perceived policy of ‘encirclement’ or constraint of India as a means of preventing or delaying New Delhi’s ability to challenge Beijing’s region-wide influence.” These ties have increased since the 1990s, and especially as the United States became increasingly close to India. As a Council on Foreign Relations background report on China-Pakistan relations explained:

The two countries have cooperated on a variety of large-scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including highways, gold and copper mines, major electricity complexes and power plants, and numerous nuclear power projects. With roughly ten thousand Chinese workers engaged in 120 projects in Pakistan, total Chinese investment – which includes heavy engineering, power generation, mining, and telecommunications – was valued at $4 billion in 2007 and is expected to rise to $15 billion by 2010.

As the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. further explained, “Pakistan thinks that both China and the United States are crucial for it,” however, he went on, “If push comes to shove, it would probably choose China – but for this moment, it doesn’t look like there has to be a choice.” The recent U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement has further entrenched a distrust of America within Pakistan and pushed the country closer to China. In 2010, China announced it would be building two nuclear power reactors in Pakistan.

In 2007, China and Pakistan inaugurated Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province along the Arabian Sea, creating the first major point in an “energy corridor” which would eventually bring oil from the Gulf overland through Pakistan into China. China financed the building of the port city for $200 million, with plans to fund billions more worth of railroads, roads, and pipelines which would link Gwadar Port to China. Pakistan is strategically placed in the centre of the new ‘Great Game’, a nomenclature for the great imperial battles over Central Asia in the 19th century. Pakistan is neighbour to Iran, India, China, and Afghanistan, with a coastline on the Arabian Sea. Thus, Pakistan is situated between the oil-rich Middle East and the natural gas-rich Central Asian countries, with two of the fastest growing economies in the world – India and China – as energy-hungry neighbours; with the imperial presence of America in neighbouring Afghanistan, with its eye focused intensely on neighbouring Iran. A ‘Great Game’ ensues, drawing in Russia, China, India and America, and the main focus of the game is pipelines.

China has a major pipeline project in the works to bring in natural gas from Central Asia, transporting the gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and into China, which is set to be completed by 2013. Iran, OPEC’s second largest oil exporter (after Saudi Arabia), is among the top ten oil exporters to China, and in 2010 it was reported that the Chinese have invested roughly $40 billion in Iran’s oil and gas sectors, including financing for the construction of seven new oil refineries, as well as various oil and gas pipeline projects. In June of 2011, it was reported that China’s oil imports from Iran have increased by 32%, signaling a growing importance in the relationship between the two countries. The largest three oil exporters to China are Saudi Arabia, Angola, and Iran, respectively.

The Gwadar Port city built by Chinese investments is destined to be a central hub in the pipeline politics of the ‘Great Game,’ in particular between the competing pipeline projects of the Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP or TAPI), involving a pipeline bringing natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and into India; and the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPI). The major issue here is that the TAPI pipeline cannot be built so long as Afghanistan is plunged into war, thus the project has been incessantly stalled. On the other hand, India has been wavering and moving out of the picture in the IPI pipeline, in no small measure due to its increasingly close relations with the United States, which has sought to dissuade Pakistan from building a pipeline with Iran. However, in 2010, Pakistan and Iran signed the agreement, and are willing to either allow India or China to be the beneficiary of the pipeline. Whether going to India or China, Gwadar Port will be a central hub in this project. Pakistan has now been seeking direct help from China on the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project. The U.S., for its part, warned Pakistan against signing onto a pipeline project with Iran, yet Pakistan proceeded with the project regardless.

The southern Pakistani province of Balochistan is home to oil, gas, copper, gold, and coal reserves, not to mention, it is the strategic corridor through which the pipeline projects would run, and is home to the strategically significant port city of Gwadar. For the past fifty years, however, Balochistan has been a major hub of Chinese investment and opportunity, with Chinese companies having poured $15 billion into projects in the province, including the construction of an oil refinery, copper and zinc mines, and of course, Gwadar Port. India is increasingly concerned about China’s presence in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. China is building ports not only in Pakistan, but in Bangladesh and Burma, as well as railroad lines in Nepal.

Following the supposed assassination of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. in Pakistani territory, tensions between Pakistan and America increased, and ties between China and Pakistan deepened. The Chinese were subsequently approached by the Pakistanis to take control of the port of Gwadar, and perhaps to even build a Pakistani naval base there, though the Chinese have denied Pakistani claims that any such deal had been reached. China, further, in response to the apparent U.S. assassination of Bin Laden, said that the ‘international community’ (referring to the United States) “must respect” Pakistani sovereignty. Indian news quoted diplomatic sources as saying that China “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani visited China on a state visit shortly after the American raid into Pakistan. Following the meetings, China agreed to immediately provide 50 fighter jets to Pakistan, a clear signal that Pakistan is looking for alternatives to its American dependence, and China is all too happy to provide such an alternative. As the Financial Times reported, “Pakistan has asked China to build a naval base at its south-western port of Gwadar and expects the Chinese navy to maintain a regular presence there.” China has also signaled that it would be interested in setting up foreign military bases, just as the United States has, and specifically is interested in such a base inside Pakistan. The aim “would be to exert pressure on India as well as counter US influence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Conclusion

It would seem, then, that the true cause of chaos, destabilization, and war in Pakistan is not the Orientalist perspective of Pakistanis being the ‘Other’: barbaric, backwards, violent and self-destructive, in need to ‘intervention’ to right their own wrongs. Following along the same lines as the dismantling of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the destabilization of Pakistan is aimed at wider strategic objectives for the Western imperial powers: namely, the isolation of China. While Pakistan has long been a staunch U.S. puppet regime, in the wider geopolitical context of a global rivalry between the United States and China for control of the world’s resources and strategic positions, Pakistan may be sacrificed upon the altar of empire. The potential result of this strategy, in a country exceeding 180 million people, armed with nuclear weapons, and in the centre of one of the most tumultuous regions in the world, may be cataclysmic, perhaps even resulting in a war between the ‘great powers.’ The only way to help prevent such a potential scenario would be to analyze the strategy further, and expose it to a much wider audience, thus initiating a wider public discussion on the issue. As long as the public discourse on Pakistan is framed as an issue of “terrorism” and the “War on Terror” alone, this strategic nightmare will continue forward.

As the saying goes, “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

But so too then, can war be the casualty of Truth.

Reprinted from Global Research. The article with footnotes is available here.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). e is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century. He is currently writing a book on "Global Government" due to be released in 2011 by Global Research Publishers.

To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.

~ Denis Healey, 30-year member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group

The ‘Foundations’ of the Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group, formed in 1954, was founded in the Netherlands as a secretive meeting held once a year, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as “an informal network of influential people who could consult each other privately and confidentially.” Regular participants include the CEOs or Chairman of some of the largest corporations in the world, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and Total SA, as well as various European monarchs, international bankers such as David Rockefeller, major politicians, presidents, prime ministers, and central bankers of the world. The Bilderberg Group acts as a “secretive global think-tank,” with an original intent to “to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War.”

In the early 1950s, top European elites worked with selected American elites to form the Bilderberg Group in an effort to bring together the most influential people from both sides of the Atlantic to advance the cause of ‘Atlanticism’ and ‘globalism.’ The list of attendees were the usual suspects: top politicians, international businessmen, bankers, leaders of think tanks and foundations, top academics and university leaders, diplomats, media moguls, military officials, and Bilderberg also included several heads of state, monarchs, as well as senior intelligence officials, including top officials of the CIA, which was the main financier for the first meeting in 1954.

The European founders of the Bilderberg Group included Joseph Retinger and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Prince Bernhard had, incidentally, been a member of the Nazi Party until 1934, three years prior to his marrying the Dutch Queen Juliana, and had also worked for the German industrial giant, I.G. Farben, the maker of Zyklon B, the gas used in concentration camps. On the American side, those who were most prominent in the formation of the Bilderberg Group were David Rockefeller, Dean Rusk (a top official with the Council on Foreign Relations who was then the head of the Rockefeller Foundation), Joseph Johnson (another Council leader who was head of the Carnegie Endowment), and John J. McCloy (a top Council leader who became Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank in 1953 and was also Chairman of the Board of the Ford Foundation).

The fact that the major American foundations – Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford – were so pivotal in the origins of the Bilderberg Group is not a mere coincidence. The foundations have, since their founding at the beginning of the 20th century, been the central institutions in constructing consensus among elites, and creating consent to power. They are, in short, the engines of social engineering: both for elite circles specifically, and society as a whole, more generally. As Professor of Education Robert F. Arnove wrote in his book Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism:

Foundations like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford have a corrosive influence on a democratic society; they represent relatively unregulated and unaccountable concentrations of power and wealth which buy talent, promote causes, and, in effect, establish an agenda of what merits society’s attention. They serve as “cooling-out” agencies, delaying and preventing more radical, structural change. They help maintain an economic and political order, international in scope, which benefits the ruling-class interests of philanthropists and philanthropoids – a system which… has worked against the interests of minorities, the working class, and Third World peoples.[8]

These foundations had been central in promoting the ideology of ‘globalism’ that laid the groundwork for organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group to exist. The Rockefeller Foundation, in particular, supported several organizations that promoted a ‘liberal internationalist’ philosophy, the aim of which:

was to support a foreign policy within a new world order that was to feature the United States as the leading power – a programme defined by the Rockefeller Foundation as ‘disinterested’, ‘objective’ and even ‘non-political’… The construction of a new internationalist consensus required the conscious, targeted funding of individuals and organizations who questioned and undermined the supporters of the ‘old order’ while simultaneously promoting the ‘new’.

The major foundations funded and created not only policy-oriented institutes such as think tanks, but they were also pivotal in the organization and construction of universities and education itself, in particular, the study of ‘international relations.’ The influence of foundations over education and universities and thus, ‘knowledge’ itself, is unparalleled. As noted in the book, Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism:

The power of the foundation is not that of dictating what will be studied. Its power consists in defining professional and intellectual parameters, in determining who will receive support to study what subjects in what settings. And the foundation’s power resides in suggesting certain types of activities it favors and is willing to support. As [political theorist and economist Harold] Laski noted, “the foundations do not control, simply because, in the direct and simple sense of the word, there is no need for them to do so. They have only to indicate the immediate direction of their minds for the whole university world to discover that it always meant to gravitate to that angle of the intellectual compass.”

The major philanthropic foundations created by America’s ‘robber baron’ industrialists and bankers were established not to benefit mankind, as was their stated purpose, but to benefit the bankers and industrialist elites in order to engage in social engineering. Through banks, these powerful families controlled the global economy; through think tanks, they manage the political and foreign policy establishments; and through foundations, they engineer society itself according to their own designs and interests. Through these foundations, elites have come to shape the processes, ideas and institutions of education, thus ensuring their continued hegemony over society through the production and control of knowledge. The educational institutions train future elites for government, economics, sciences, and other professional environments, as well as producing the academics that make up the principle component of think tanks, such as the Bilderberg Group.

Foundations effectively “blur boundaries” between the public and private sectors, while simultaneously effecting the separation of such areas in the study of social sciences. This boundary erosion between public and private spheres “adds feudal elements to our purported democracy, yet it has not been resisted, protested, or even noted much by political elites or social scientists.” Zbigniew Brzezinski, foreign policy strategist, former director of the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg member and co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission, wrote that the blurring of boundaries “serves United States world dominance”:

As the imitation of American ways gradually pervades the world, it creates a more congenial setting for the exercise of the indirect and seemingly consensual American hegemony. And as in the case of the domestic American system, that hegemony involves a complex structure of interlocking institutions and procedures, designed to generate consensus and obscure asymmetries in power and influence.

In 1915, a Congressional investigation into the power of philanthropic foundations took place, named the Walsh Commission, which warned that, “the power of wealth could overwhelm democratic culture and politics.” The Final Report of the Walsh Commission “suggested that foundations would be more likely to pursue their own ideology in society than social objectivity.” In this context, we can come to understand the evolution of the Bilderberg Group as an international think tank aimed at constructing consensus and entrenching ideology among the elite.

At their first meeting, Bilderbergers covered the following broad areas, which remained focal points of discussion for successive meetings: Communism and the Soviet Union; Dependent areas and peoples overseas; Economic policies and problems; and European integration and the European Defense Community.

Nearly every single American participant in the Bilderberg meetings was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Among the notable American members of the Bilderberg Group in its early years were David Rockefeller, Dean Rusk, John J. McCloy, George McGhee, George Ball, Walt Whitman Rostow, McGeorge Bundy, Arthur Dean, and Paul Nitze. As Political Scientist Stephen Gill wrote, “Prominent in the American section were the network of Rockefeller interests.”

Certainly, while Rothschild interests have remained in the Bilderberg Group, as evidenced by Edmond de Rothschild having been a member of the Steering Committee, and Franco Bernabe, Vice Chairman of Rothschild Europe being a current Steering Committee member,[18] the Rockefeller interests seem to be most dominant. Not only is David Rockefeller sitting as the single individual of the Member Advisory Group of the Steering Committee, but close Rockefeller confidantes have long served on the Steering Committee and been affiliated with the organization, such as: Sharon Percy Rockefeller; George Ball, a long-time leader in the Council on Foreign Relations, who was Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations; Henry Kissinger, long-time Rockefeller aide and American imperial strategist; Zbigniew Brzezinski, who co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller; Joseph E. Johnson, former U.S. State Department official and President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; John J. McCloy, former Chairman the Council on Foreign Relations (superceded by David Rockefeller), former Assistant Secretary of War, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (where he was superceded by David Rockefeller), former Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, Chairman of the Ford Foundation, and President of the World Bank; and James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank and Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.

One current Steering Committee member, who is representative of not only a continuation of Rockefeller interests, but also of the continuing influence and role of the major foundations is Jessica T. Matthews. She is President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who had served on the National Security Council under Zbigniew Brzezinski, was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (at which David Rockefeller remains as Honorary Chairman), is a member of the Trilateral Commission, is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, and has served on the boards of the Brookings Institution, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Joyce Foundation.

Bilderberg and the European Union

Joseph Retinger, one of the founders of the Bilderberg Group, was also one of the original architects of the European Common Market and a leading intellectual champion of European integration. In 1946, he told the Royal Institute of International Affairs (the British counterpart and sister organization of the Council on Foreign Relations), that Europe needed to create a federal union and for European countries to “relinquish part of their sovereignty.” Retinger was a founder of the European Movement (EM), a lobbying organization dedicated to creating a federal Europe. Retinger secured financial support for the European Movement from powerful US financial interests such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefellers. Important to note is that following World War II, the CFR’s main finances came from the Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation and most especially, the Rockefeller Foundation.

Apart from Retinger, the founder of the Bilderberg Group and the European Movement, another ideological founder of European integration was Jean Monnet, who founded the Action Committee for a United States of Europe (ACUE), an organization dedicated to promoting European integration, and he was also the major promoter and first president of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the precursor to the European Common Market.

Declassified documents (released in 2001) showed that “the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement.” The documents revealed that, “America was working aggressively behind the scenes to push Britain into a European state. One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully-fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.” Further, “Washington’s main tool for shaping the European agenda was the American Committee for a United Europe, created in 1948. The chairman was Donovan, ostensibly a private lawyer by then,” and “the vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA’s first director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organisation in the post-war years.” Interestingly, “the leaders of the European Movement – Retinger, the visionary Robert Schuman and the former Belgian prime minister Paul-Henri Spaak – were all treated as hired hands by their American sponsors. The US role was handled as a covert operation. ACUE’s funding came from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations as well as business groups with close ties to the US government.”

The European Coal and Steel Community was formed in 1951, and signed by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Newly released documents from the 1955 Bilderberg meeting show that a main topic of discussion was “European Unity,” and that “the discussion affirmed complete support for the idea of integration and unification from the representatives of all the six nations of the Coal and Steel Community present at the conference.” Further, “A European speaker expressed concern about the need to achieve a common currency, and indicated that in his view this necessarily implied the creation of a central political authority.” Interestingly, “a United States participant confirmed that the United States had not weakened in its enthusiastic support for the idea of integration, although there was considerable diffidence in America as to how this enthusiasm should be manifested. Another United States participant urged his European friends to go ahead with the unification of Europe with less emphasis upon ideological considerations and, above all, to be practical and work fast.” Thus, at the 1955 Bilderberg Group meeting, they set as a primary agenda, the creation of a European common market.

In 1957, two years later, the Treaty of Rome was signed, which created the European Economic Community (EEC), also known as the European Community. Over the decades, various other treaties were signed, and more countries joined the European Community. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was signed, which created the European Union and led to the creation of the Euro. The European Monetary Institute was created in 1994, the European Central Bank was founded in 1998, and the Euro was launched in 1999. Etienne Davignon, Chairman of the Bilderberg Group and former EU Commissioner, revealed in March of 2009 that the Euro was debated and planned at Bilderberg conferences.

The European Constitution (renamed the Lisbon Treaty) was a move towards creating a European superstate, creating an EU foreign minister, and with it, coordinated foreign policy, with the EU taking over the seat of Britain on the UN Security Council, representing all EU member states, forcing the nations to “actively and unreservedly” follow an EU foreign policy; set out the framework to create an EU defence policy, as an appendage to or separate from NATO; the creation of a European Justice system, with the EU defining “minimum standards in defining offences and setting sentences,” and creates common asylum and immigration policy; and it would also hand over to the EU the power to “ensure co-ordination of economic and employment policies”; and EU law would supercede all law of the member states, thus making the member nations relative to mere provinces within a centralized federal government system.

The Constitution was largely written up by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, former President of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981. Giscard d’Estaing also happens to be a member of the Bidlerberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and is also a close friend of Henry Kissinger, having co-authored papers with him.

The Treaty, passed in 2009, created the position of President of the European Council, who represents the EU on the world stage and leads the Council, which determines the political direction of the EU. The first President of the European Council is Herman Van Rompuy, former Prime Minister of Belgium. On November 12, 2009, a small Bilderberg meeting took place, hosted by Viscount Etienne Davignon (Chairman of the Bilderberg Group), and including “international policymakers and industrialists,” among them, Henry Kissinger. Herman Von Rompuy “attended the Bilderberg session to audition for the European job, calling for a new system of levies to fund the EU and replace the perennial EU budget battles.” Following his selection as President, Van Rompuy gave a speech in which he stated, “We are going through exceptionally difficult times: the financial crisis and its dramatic impact on employment and budgets, the climate crisis which threatens our very survival; a period of anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of confidence. Yet, these problems can be overcome by a joint effort in and between our countries. 2009 is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis; the climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.”

As indicated from leaks of the recent 2011 Bilderberg meeting in Switzerland, the euro-zone is in a major crisis, and Bilderberg members are struggling to keep the house of glass from shattering to pieces. One major subject discussed at this year’s meeting, according to Bilderberg investigative journalist, Daniel Estulin (who reportedly has inside sources in the meetings who leak information, which has proved quite accurate in the past), the Bilderberg meeting discussed the situation of Greece, which is likely to only get worse, with another bailout on the horizon, continuing social unrest, and a possible abandonment of the euro. The problems of Greece, Ireland and the wider global economy as a whole were featured in this year’s discussions. Representatives from Greece this year included George Papaconstantinou, the Greek Minister of Finance, among several bankers and businessmen.

Among the EU power players attending this years meeting was the first President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, who was appointed as President following an invitation to a private Bilderberg meeting in November of 2009, at which he gave a speech advocating for EU-wide taxes, allowing the EU to not rely exclusively upon its member nations, but have its “own resources.” Van Rompuy, who previously stated that, “2009 is also the first year of global governance,” is no surprise guest at Bilderberg. Other key EU officials who attended this year’s meeting were Joaquín Almunia, a Vice President of the European Commission; Frans van Daele, Chief of Staff to European Council President Van Rompuy; Neelie Kroes, a Vice President of the European Commission; and of course, Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank.

As with each meeting, there is the official list of participants, and then there are those participants who attend, but whose names are not listed in any official release. At this year’s meeting, some reports indicate that attendees whose names were not listed included NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen, which is not surprising considering that the NATO Secretary-General has generally been present at every meeting; Jose Luis Zapatero, Spanish Prime Minister; Angela Merkel, German Chancellor; Bill Gates, Co-Chairman of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and former Microsoft CEO; and Robert Gates, the outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense. The Guardian also reported that these “unofficial guests” were spotted at the conference or had their attendance ‘leaked’. Angela Merkel has reportedly attended meetings in the past, which would make her current attendance less than surprising.

At the recent meeting, EU officials were discussing the need for the EU to undertake a “massive power grab” in the face of the massive economic crisis facing Europe and indeed the world. Without such a power grab, the euro and indeed the Union itself would likely collapse; a scenario anathema to everything the Bilderberg group has tried to achieve in its 57-year history. The aim, put simply, would be to have the EU police itself and the nations of the Union, with the ability to punish nations for not following the rules, and as one Bilderberger reportedly stated at the meeting, “What we are heading towards a form of real economic government.” Now while this statement cannot be independently verified, there is much documentation within the public record that several of the European attendees at the meeting could have easily made such a statement.

Prior to the meeting, European Central Bank President, Jean-Claude Trichet, “said governments should consider setting up a finance ministry for the 17-nation currency region as the bloc struggles to contain a region-wide sovereign debt crisis.” Trichet asked: “Would it be too bold, in the economic field, with a single market, a single currency and a single central bank, to envisage a ministry of finance of the union?” Further in line with this thought, and with the ideas laid out in the Bilderberg meeting in favour of a ‘power grab’, Trichet said he supports “giving the European Union powers to veto the budget measures of countries that go ‘harmfully astray,’ though that would require a change to EU Treaties.” Such a finance ministry would, according to Trichet, “exert direct responsibilities in at least three domains”:

They would include "first, the surveillance of both fiscal policies and competitiveness policies" and "direct responsibilities" for countries in fiscal distress, he said. It would also carry out "all the typical responsibilities of the executive branches as regards the union’s integrated financial sector, so as to accompany the full integration of financial services, and third, the representation of the union confederation in international financial institutions."

Last year, Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme endorsed such an idea of a ‘European Economic Government’ when he stated:

The idea of strengthened economic government has been put on the table and will make progress. In the end, the European Debt Agency or something like it will become a reality. I’m convinced of this. It’s about Europe’s financial stability and it’s not an ideological debate about federalism. I myself am a federalist. But more integration and deeper integration are simply logical consequences of having a single currency.

This is of course, not surprising, considering that Leterme’s predecessor is Herman van Rompuy, the current Bilderberg participant and EU President, a strong-headed advocate of an ‘economic government’ and ‘global governance.’ The plans for an ‘economic government’ require the strong commitment of both France and Germany, which may explain Merkel’s reported appearance at Bilderberg. In March of 2010, the German and French governments released a draft outline that would “strengthen financial policy coordination in the EU.” The plan, seen by German publication Der Spiegel, “calls for increased monitoring of individual member states’ competitiveness so that action can be taken early on should problems emerge.” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker stated in response to the plan, “We need a European economic government in the sense of strengthened coordination of economic policy within the euro zone.” In December of 2010, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stated that, “In 10 years we will have a structure that corresponds much stronger to what one describes as political union.”

As reported by the German press in early 2011, Germany and France were split on several aspects of such an ‘economic government.’ However, as Merkel stated, “We have obviously been discussing the issue of an economic government for a long time,” and that, “What we are currently envisioning goes yet another step in this direction.” Yet, the differences between the two approaches are mainly as follows:

France would prefer to see the European Council, which comprises the heads of state and government of the EU’s member states, turned into a kind of economic government. Since only euro-zone member countries would be involved initially, French Finance Minister [and past Bilderberg participant] Christine Lagarde has dubbed the project "16 plus."

The Germans are focused on completely different things. Their preference would be to see the current rescue fund replaced by the so-called European Stability Mechanism in 2013. According to this arrangement, in return for any help, cash-strapped countries would have to subject themselves to a strict cost-cutting regimen.

Mario Draghi is the current President of the Bank of Italy, as well as a board member of the Bank for International Settlements – the BIS (the central bank to the world’s central banks). In an interview posted on the website of the BIS in March of 2010, Mario Draghi stated that in response to the Greek crisis, “In the euro area we need a stronger economic governance providing for more coordinated structural reforms and more discipline.” Mario Draghi also attended the 2009 conference of the Bilderberg Group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mario Draghi has been backed by the euro-area finance ministers to be the successor to Jean-Claude Trichet at the European Central Bank, who is due to step down in October of 2011.[45]

Certainly, the objective of a ‘European economic government’ will continue throughout the coming years, especially as the economic crisis continues. As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, outgoing Managing Director of the IMF and long-time Bilderberg participant stated, “crisis is an opportunity.” Bilderberg, while not omnipotent by any means, will do all in its ability to prevent the collapse of the euro or the ending of the European Union. Bilderberg has, after all, from its very beginning, made ‘European integration’ one of its central objectives. In an official biography of Bilderberg-founder and long-time Chairman Prince Bernhard, the Bilderberg Group was credited as “the birthplace of the European Community.”

Regime Change at the IMF?

Christine Lagarde, the French Finance Minister who has been pivotal in the process towards drafting and proposing a ‘European economic government’, is also considered the front-runner for the job of Managing Director of the IMF. The Managing Director of the IMF is always in attendance at Bilderberg meetings, except for this year, considering outgoing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is facing sexual assault charges in New York; yet, the top job is usually set aside for those who have been invited to at least one meeting of the Bilderberg Group. While the race has yet to finish, perhaps it is noteworthy that Christine Lagarde attended a Bilderberg meeting in 2009. Could this make her the supreme choice, or is there a surprise in the near future?

A Place for China in the New World Order?

Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin’s report of inside sources in this year’s meeting indicated a rather extensive discussion on the role of China, which is hardly surprising, considering this has been a central topic of discussion in meetings for a number of years. China emerged in discussions on Pakistan, as China has become increasingly Pakistan’s closest economic and strategic ally, a trend that is continuing as America continues to spread the Afghan war into neighbouring Pakistan. China is also a major player in Africa, threatening the West’s stranglehold over the continent, in particular through the World Bank and IMF. Most importantly, however, and not unrelated to its role in Pakistan and Africa, China has become the greatest economic competitor for the United States in the world, and as the IMF even admitted recently, its economy is expected to surpass that of the United States by 2016. Bilderberg paid attention to this issue not simply as a financial-economic consideration, but as a massive geopolitical transition in the world: “the biggest story of our time.”

What made the discussion on China at this year’s meeting unique was that it actually included two attendees from China for the first time ever. The two guests were Huang Yiping, a prominent economics professor at Peking University (China’s Harvard), and Fu Ying, China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is especially unusual and telling of the importance of the discussion at hand, considering that Bilderberg is exclusively a European and North American (Atlantic) organization, and in the past, when Bilderberg memebers David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested Japan be allowed to join in 1972, the European rejected the proposition, and instead the Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 to integrate the elites of Western Europe, North America, and Japan. The Trilateral Commission eventually expanded the Japanese section of the group into a ‘Pacific Asian Group’ in 2000 to include not only Japan, but South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

In 2009 the G20 was endowed with the task of ‘managing’ the global economic crisis – to include the ‘emerging’ economic giants, notably China and India – and as Bilderberg member Jean-Claude Trichet stated, this marked “the emergence of the G20 as the prime group for global economic governance.” That same year the newly-appointed European Union President Herman van Rompuy declared to be “the first year of global governance.” No surprise then, that also in 2009, China and India were invited as official members of the Trilateral Commission. This indicates a growing role for India and especially China in global affairs, and participation in Bilderberg meetings emphasizes the aim to not alienate China from the established institutions, ideologies and systems of global power, but to more fully integrate China within that system. The aim of the global elite, perhaps best represented by Bilderberg, is not to allow for the collapse of the American empire and the rise of a new one; rather, it is to manage the collapse of American hegemony into an entirely new system of global governance. This ‘big idea’ is not possible without the participation of China, and thus, as Bilderberg has long been saturated with the ideology of ‘global governance,’ it cannot be seen as too surprising to see China invited. Perhaps the surprise should be that it simply took this long.

Is Bilderberg Building a Global Government?

Jon Ronson wrote an article for the Guardian paper in which he managed to interview key members of the Bilderberg Group for an exposé on the organization, attempting to dismantle the “conspiracy theories” surrounding the secrecy of the meetings. However, through his interviews, important information regarding the social importance of the group continued to emerge. Ronson attempted to contact David Rockefeller, but only managed to reach his press secretary who told Ronson that the “conspiracy theories” about Rockefeller and “global think-tanks such as Bilderberg in general” left David Rockefeller “thoroughly fed up.” According to his press secretary, “Mr. Rockefeller’s conclusion was that this was a battle between rational and irrational thought. Rational people favoured globalisation. Irrational people preferred nationalism.”

While dismissing “conspiracy theories” that Bilderberg “runs the world,” Ronson did explain that the Bilderberg members he interviewed admitted, “that international affairs had, from time to time, been influenced by these sessions.” As Denis Healey, a 30-year member of the Steering Committee, himself pointedly explained:

To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing… Bilderberg is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists, financiers and journalists. Politics should involve people who aren’t politicians. We make a point of getting along younger politicians who are obviously rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who offer them wise words. It increases the chance of having a sensible global policy.

Will Hutton, the former editor of the Observer, who had been invited to Bilderberg meetings in the past, once famously referred to the group as “the high priests of globalization.” Hutton has said that “people take part in these networks in order to influence the way the world works,” and to create, as he put it, “the international common sense” of policy. The Chairman of the Bilderberg Group, Viscount Etienne Davignon, stated that, “I don’t think (we are) a global ruling class because I don’t think a global ruling class exists. I simply think it’s people who have influence interested to speak to other people who have influence.”

G. William Domhoff is a professor of Psychology and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has written about the Bilderberg Group. In an interview, he discounted the notion that the study of such groups is relegated to the realm of conspiracy theory, and instead explained that he studies “how elites strive to develop consensus, which is through such publicly observable organizations as corporate boards and the policy-planning network, which can be studied in detail, and which are reported on in the media in at least a halfway accurate manner.”

Bilderbergers have long been advocates of global governance and ‘global government,’ and ‘crisis’ is always an excellent means through which to advance their agendas. Just as the Greek crisis has stepped up calls for the formation of a ‘European economic government,’ an idea which has been sought out for much longer than Greece has been in crisis, so too is the global economic crisis an excuse to advance the cause of ‘global economic governance.’ Outgoing Managing Director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, stated in May of 2010 that, “crisis is an opportunity,” and he called for “a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features,” and that the “global central bank could also serve as a lender of last resort.” However, he stated, “I fear we are still very far from that level of global collaboration.” Unless, of course, the world continues to descend into economic and financial ruin, as any astute economic observer would likely warn is taking place.

Following the April 2009 G20 summit, “plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar’s role as the world reserve currency.” Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.” The Washington Post reported that the IMF is poised to transform “into a veritable United Nations for the global economy”:

It would have vastly expanded authority to act as a global banker to governments rich and poor. And with more flexibility to effectively print its own money, it would have the ability to inject liquidity into global markets in a way once limited to major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve… the IMF is all but certain to take a central role in managing the world economy. As a result, Washington is poised to become the power center for global financial policy, much as the United Nations has long made New York the world center for diplomacy.

While the IMF is pushed to the forefront of the global currency agenda, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) remains as the true authority in terms of ‘global governance’ overall. As the IMF’s magazine, Finance and Development, stated in 2009, “the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), established in 1930, is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements.” Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank (ECB) and long-time Bilderberg participant, gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in April of 2010 in which he explained that, “the significant transformation of global governance that we are engineering today is illustrated by three examples”:

First, the emergence of the G20 as the prime group for global economic governance at the level of ministers, governors and heads of state or government. Second, the establishment of the Global Economy Meeting of central bank governors under the auspices of the BIS as the prime group for the governance of central bank cooperation. And third, the extension of Financial Stability Board membership to include all the systemic emerging market economies.

In concluding his speech, Trichet emphasized that, “global governance is of the essence to improve decisively the resilience of the global financial system.” The following month, Trichet spoke at the Bank of Korea, where he said, “central bank cooperation is part of a more general trend that is reshaping global governance, and which has been spurred by the global financial crisis,” and that, “it is therefore not surprising that the crisis has led to even better recognition of their increased economic importance and need for full integration into global governance.” Once again, Trichet identified the BIS and its “various fora” – such as the Global Economy Meeting and the Financial Stability Board – as the “main channel” for central bank cooperation.

For more on ‘Global Government’ and the global economic crisis, see: Andrew Gavin Marshall, “Crisis is an Opportunity”: Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global Government, Global Research, 26 October 2010.

Rockefeller’s Dream

David Rockefeller celebrated his 96th birthday during last weekend’s Bilderberg meeting, and is one of if not the only remaining original founders of the group in 1954. If the Bilderberg Group represents the “high priests of globalization,” then David Rockefeller is the ‘Pope’.

James Wolfensohn represents the importance of the Rockefellers to not only America, but to the whole process of globalization. James D. Wolfensohn, an Australian national, was President of the World Bank from 1995-2005, and has since founded and leads his private firm, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC. He has also been a long-time Steering Committee member of the Bilderberg Group, and has served as an Honorary Trustee of the Brookings Institution, a major American think tank, as well as a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Wolfensohn’s father, Hyman, was employed by James Armand de Rothschild of the Rothschild banking dynasty, after whom James was named. His father taught him how to “cultivate mentors, friends and contacts of influence.” Wolfensohn rose quickly through the financial world, and as his father had lived in service to the Rothschild’s – the dominant family of the 19th century – James Wolfensohn lived in service to the Rockefellers, arguably the dominant family of the 20th century. On the event of David Rockefeller’s 90th birthday, James Wolfensohn, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, stated:

[T]he person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally in this country, and I’m very happy to say personally there afterwards, is David Rockefeller, who first met me at the Harvard Business School in 1957 or ‘58… [At the beginning of the 20th century] as we looked at the world, a family, the Rockefeller family, decided that the issues were not just national for the United States, were not just related to the rich countries. And where, extraordinarily and amazingly, David’s grandfather set up the Rockefeller Foundation, the purpose of which was to take a global view.

… So the Rockefeller family, in this last 100 years, has contributed in a way that is quite extraordinary to the development in that period and has given ample focus to the issues of development with which I have been associated. In fact, it’s fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller’s in the whole issue of globalization and in the whole issue of addressing the questions which, in some ways, are still before us today. And for that David, we’re deeply grateful to you and for your own contribution in carrying these forward in the way that you did.

David Rockefeller has been even less humble (but perhaps more honest) in his assertion of his family’s and his own personal role in shaping the world. In his 2002 book, Memoirs, David Rockefeller wrote:

For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

As if this admission was not quite enough, at a 1991 meeting of the Bilderberg group, David Rockefeller was quoted as saying:

We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.

So, happy 96th birthday, Mr. David Rockefeller! But I am sorry to say (or perhaps not so sorry) that while the mainstream media have “respected their promises of discretion,” the new media – the alternative media – have not. As you said yourself, “It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years,” it seems that the “lights of publicity” are now descending upon your “plan for the world,” making it all the more difficult to come to pass. Indeed, “the world is more sophisticated,” but not because the world is ‘ready’ for your plan, but because the world is getting ready to reject it. While national sovereignty certainly has problems and is hardly something I would consider ‘ideal’, the “supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers” is about the worst scenario one could imagine. So as a birthday present to you, Mr. Rockefeller, I promise (and I am sure that I am speaking for a great many more than simply myself) that I will continue to expose your “plans for the world,” so that your dream – and our nightmare – will never become a reality. The light will shine, and in due time, the people will be ready to follow its path.

Reprinted from Global Research. The article with footnotes is available here.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). e is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century. He is currently writing a book on "Global Government" due to be released in 2011 by Global Research Publishers.

In the late 1990s Brzezinski wrote up the design for America’s imperial project in the 21st century in his book, The Grand Chessboard. He stated bluntly that, “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America,” and then made clear the imperial nature of his strategy:

To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.

He further explained that the Central Asian nations (or “Eurasian Balkans” as he refers to them):

are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.

Brzezinski emphasizes “that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”

Obama as a Rabid Imperialist

Obama wasted no time in rapidly accelerating America’s imperial adventures. While dropping the term “War on Terror” from usage, the Pentagon adopted the term, “overseas contingency operations.” This was to be the typical strategy of the Obama administration: change the appearance, not the substance. The name was changed, but the “War on Terror” remained, and not only that, it was rapidly accelerated to a level that would not have been possible if undertaken by the previous administration.

The current expansion of American imperialism globally has been rapidly accelerated since Obama became President, and seems intent on starting and expanding wars all over the world. When Obama became President, America and its Western allies were engaged in a number of wars, occupations and covert destabilizations, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, to the Congo, and Obama took office in the midst of Israel’s brutal assault against Gaza. From the beginning of his presidency, Obama immediately justified Israel’s vicious attack against innocent Palestinians, rapidly accelerated the war and occupation of Afghanistan, expanded the war into Pakistan, started a new war in Yemen, and supported a military coup in Honduras, which removed a popular democratic government in favour of a brutal dictatorship. Obama’s administration has expanded covert special operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa, and is paving the way for a war against Iran. In fact, the Obama administration has expanded Special Operations forces into 75 countries around the world (compared with a height of 60 during the Bush regime). Among the many countries with expanded operations are Yemen, Colombia, the Philippines, Somalia, Pakistan, among many others. Further, in recent months, the Obama administration has been saber rattling with North Korea, potentially starting a war on the Korean Peninsula. With the creation of the Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), American foreign policy on the continent has become increasingly militarized.

No continent is safe, it seems. America and its NATO cohorts are undertaking a seemingly insane foreign policy of dramatically accelerating overt and covert military imperialism. This policy seems to be headed for an eventual confrontation with the rising eastern powers, in particular China, but potentially India and Russia as well. China and America, specifically, are headed on an imperial collision course: in East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The competition for access to resources is reminiscent of the ‘Great Game’ of the 19th century, of which Afghanistan was a central battlefield.

One would think that in the midst of a massive global economic crisis, the worst the world has ever seen, the major nations would scale back their imperial over-reach and militarism in order to reduce their debts and preserve their economies. However, there is an ‘imperial logic’ behind this situation, and one that must be placed within a wider geopolitical context.

Conceptualizing the Rise of China

First, we must properly address the nature of China’s rise in the world order. What we are witnessing is an historically unique situation. For the first time, the rise of a ‘new’ power is taking place not in the context of rising against the hegemonic powers of the time, but within the hegemonic order. In short, China’s rise has not been a rise against America, but rather a rise within the American world order. Thus, China has risen as much as the West has allowed it to rise, but that does not mean that China will not seek to serve its own interests now that it has accumulated significant global status and power. China has risen by integrating with the Western-dominated economic system, and in particular the Western banking and central banking systems. China and America are economically dependent upon one another, as America purchases China’s cheap products, and China funds America’s debt. In effect, China is also funding America’s imperial adventurism.

Thus, we are presented with a unique situation: one of mutual dependence and competition. While China and America are dependent upon one another, they are also each other’s greatest competitors, specifically in terms of access to and control over resources. For example, China supports both Iran and Sudan. These two nations are major targets of American imperial ambitions, not because of any humanitarian or anti-terrorism concerns (although that is the propaganda espoused most often), but because of the significant resources and strategic relevance of these nations. As they are not subservient to the West and specifically America, they are considered ‘enemy nations’, and thus the media focus on demonizing these nations so that the public is supportive of military or other means of implementing “regime change.” China supports these nations because of its access to their resources, and as a counter to American influence.

Global Governance

To add another complex feature to this story, we must place this conflicting relationship in the context of the global economic crisis and the world response to it. The G20 is the principle forum for ‘global governance,’ in which the nations of the world are working together to increasingly integrate their governance approaches on a global scale. The economic crisis has provided the impetus to spur on calls for and the implementation of plans to construct a system of global economic governance: a global central bank and global currency. So, as China and America are seeking to further integrate economically and globally, they are also competing for access to and control over resources.

The logic behind this is that both powers want to be able to negotiate the process of constructing a system of global governance from a more secure standpoint. While it is generally acknowledged that the world is witnessing “the rise of the East,” in particular with China and India, we see the center of global power moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Several commentators for years have been analyzing and discussing this issue; however, the fact that power has been centered in the Atlantic for the past 500 years means that it will not be so easily moved to the Pacific. In fact, the Western powers not only acknowledge the rise of the East, but that the East has risen because they have allowed it to and aided it in this process. The Western powers have done this not out of some benevolent design, but because the organized intellectual powers of the West (namely, the principle think tanks and banking interests) have sought to create a perfect global system of governance, one in which power does not sway from nation to nation, or West to East, but rather that power is centralized globally. This is obviously a long-term project, and will not (if ever) be realized for several more decades. Yet, it is through crises – economic, political, and social – that this process of global governance can be rapidly accelerated.

See: “Crisis is an Opportunity”: Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global Government

Understanding Imperial Dynamics

There is another dynamic to this complicated relationship that must be addressed, that of the internal dynamics between the political, economic and military elite of the dominant nations. For the sake of time, I will focus on the two principle nations: America and China. America’s national security apparatus, namely the Pentagon and intelligence services, have long worked in the service of the economic elite and in close cooperation with the political elite. There is a network that exists, which President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” where the interests of these three sectors overlap and thus America is given its imperial impetus.

It is within the major think tanks of the nation, specifically the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where cohesion between these sectors is encouraged and managed. The think tanks, and the CFR most especially, are the policy-makers of the American Empire. Think tanks bring together elites from most power sectors of society – the military, political, corporate, banking, intelligence, academia, media, etc. – and they discuss, debate and ultimately produce strategy blueprints and recommendations for American foreign policy. Individuals from these think tanks move in and out of the policy-making circles, creating a revolving door between the policy-planners and those that implement them. The think tanks, in this context, are essentially the intellectual engines of the American Empire.

Still, we must not assume that because they are grouped together, work together, and strategize together, that they are identical in views or methods; there is significant debate, disagreement and conflict within and between the think tanks and policy-making circles. However, dissent within these institutions is of a particular nature: it focuses on disagreement over methods rather than aims and objectives. To elaborate, the members (at least the powerful members) of think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations do not disagree on the cause of empire and supporting American hegemony, that is a given, and is not often even discussed. That is the environment in which the elite operate.

What is up for debate and discussion is the methods used to achieve this, and it is here where significant conflicts arise between elites. Bankers and corporations seek to protect their financial and economic interests around the world. Military officials are concerned with preserving and expanding American hegemony, and are largely focused on potential rivals to American military power, and tend to favour military options of foreign policy over diplomatic ones. Political representatives must be concerned with the total influence and projection of American power – economically, militarily, politically, etc. – and so they must weigh and balance these multiple interests and translate it into a cohesive policy. Often, they lean towards the use of military might, however, there have been many incidents and issues for which political leaders have had to rein in the military and pursue diplomatic objectives. There have also been instances where the military has attempted to rein in rabidly militaristic political leaders, such as during the Bush administration with the neo-conservatives pushing for direct confrontation with Iran, prompting direct and often public protests and rebuttals from the military establishment, as well as several resignations of top-ranking generals.

These differences are often represented directly within administrations. The Kennedy years, for example, saw a continual conflict between the military and intelligence circles and the civilian leadership of John Kennedy. His brief term as President was marked by a constant struggle to prevent the military and intelligence services of America – particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA – from starting wars with Cuba, Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved only after Robert Kennedy, JFK’s brother and the Attorney General, convinced the Russians that Kennedy was at risk of being overthrown in a military coup, which would result in a direct nuclear war against the USSR.

See: The National Security State and the Assassination of JFK

Thus, within the key policy circles – namely the think tanks and presidential cabinets – there is always a delicate balancing act of these various interests. Fundamentally, with American power, they all rest and support American corporate and banking interests. Diplomacy, especially, is concerned with supporting American corporate and financial interests abroad. As the Wikileaks diplomatic cables have revealed in a number of cases, diplomats directly intervene on behalf of and work with various corporate interests. US diplomats acted as sales agents to foreign governments promoting Boeing planes over European competitors, they pressured the government of Bangladesh to reopen a widely-opposed mine in the country operated by a British company, they lobbied the Russian government directly on behalf of the interests of Visa and Mastercard, engaged in intelligence sharing with Shell in Nigeria, and in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, US diplomats worked with major British business interests and British Prince Andrew, who stated that, “the United Kingdom, Western Europe (and by extension you Americans too,” were “back in the thick of playing the Great Game,” and that, “this time we aim to win!”

The military, in turn, acts in the interests of the corporate and financial elite, as those countries that do not submit to American economic hegemony are deemed enemies, and the military is ultimately sent in to implement “regime change.” Strategic concerns are de facto economic concerns. The military is concerned with preserving and expanding American hegemony, and to do so they must be focused on threats to American dominance, as well as securing strategic locations in the world. For example, the war in Yemen, a country with very little to offer economically, has a lot to do with strategic-economic interests. The ‘threat’ in Yemen is not in the form of al-Qaeda, though that is what is most propagandized, but rather it is the fact that the long-supported dictatorship of President Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, is threatened by a rebel movement in the North and a massive secessionist movement in the South, as the central government controls barely one-third of the country. In short, Yemen is on the verge of revolution, and thus, America’s trusted ally and local despot, President Saleh, is at risk of being usurped. Thus, America has heavily subsidized Yemen’s military, and has even directly launched cruise missiles, sent in Special Forces and other forms of assistance to help Yemen’s dictator suppress, repress and ultimately crush these popular people’s movements for independence and liberty.

Now why is this a strategic-economic concern to America, for a country that has little dwindling resources to offer? The answer is in Yemen’s geographic location. Directly below Saudi Arabia, a revolutionary government that would be highly antagonistic towards America’s trusted Saudi proxy state would be a threat to America’s interests throughout the entire Middle East. It would be likely that Iran would seek to ally itself and aid such a government, allowing Iran to expand its own political influence in the region. This is why Saudi Arabia is itself taking direct military action in Yemen against the rebels in the North, along its border. The Saudi elite are fearful of the rebellious sentiments spreading into Saudi Arabia itself. No wonder then, that America recently signed off on the largest arms deal in U.S. history with Saudi Arabia, totaling $60 billion, in an effort to support operations in Yemen but principally to act as a counter to Iranian influence in the region. Further, Yemen sits atop the Gulf of Aden, directly across from the Horn of Africa (namely Somalia), connecting the Black Sea to the Arabian Sea, which is itself one of the major oil transport routes in the world. Strategic control over the nations lining the Gulf of Aden is of primary interest to American imperial strategists, whether they are military, political or economic in nature.

Yemen is also directly across the water from Somalia, another country ravaged by the American war machine. As the diplomatic cables confirmed, in 2006, “the Bush Administration pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia with an eye on crushing the Union of Islamic Courts,” which is exactly what happened, and Somalia has been a ‘failed state’ mired in civil war ever since. The piracy that has exploded in the waters off of Somalia are a result of the massive toxic waste dumping and over-fishing done by European and American and other major shipping lines, and have served as an excuse for the militarization of the waters. In this context, it would be unacceptable from a strategic standpoint to allow Yemen to fall from American influence. Thus, America is at war in Yemen.

See: Yemen: The Covert Apparatus of the American Empire

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Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). e is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century. He is currently writing a book on "Global Government" due to be released in 2011 by Global Research Publishers.

Just 47 years
ago, on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated
in Dallas, Texas. This marked the turning of the American National
Security State apparatus against its own leadership. After having
overthrown, assassinated leaders, and orchestrated coups around
the world, the moment its growing power was threatened by the civilian
leadership in America, the apparatus of empire came home to roost.

The National
Security State

The apparatus
of the National Security State, largely established in the National
Security Act of 1947, laid the foundations for the extension of
American hegemony around the globe. In short, the Act laid the foundations
for the apparatus of the American Empire. The National Security
Act created the National Security Council (NSC) and position of
National Security Adviser, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(JSC) as the Pentagon high command of military leaders, and of course,
the CIA.

The first major
foreign operation carried out by the National Security State, or
rather, the “secret government,” was the overthrowing
of a democratically elected government in Iran. In 1952, the British
were concerned at the efforts of Iran’s new Prime Minister
Mohommad Mossadeq, in nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, taking
the monopoly away from British Petroleum. So the British intelligence,
the SIS, proposed to the Americans a joint operation, and the CIA
obliged.

In early 1953,
with the ascendancy of the Eisenhower administration, two brothers,
the Dulles brothers, came to dominate foreign policy decisions.
John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State while his brother,
Allen Dulles, became director of the CIA. Allen Dulles was a founding
member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a director of
the CFR from 1927 to 1969,[1] while John Foster Dulles had joined
the Council in the 1930s, and was a career diplomat and Wall Street
lawyer.[2] In 1953, the Dulles brothers both worked and lobbied
Eisenhower for the removal of Mossadeq from Iran,[3] and subsequently,
the CIA and SIS worked together to enact the plan and overthrew
the Iranian government.[4]

On January
17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his farewell address
to the nation in which he warned America and indeed the world about
the growing influence of the National Security State in what he
referred to as the “military-industrial complex”:

"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 now 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
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 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 military-industrial
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."[5]

Eisenhower
was speaking from the point of view of having first-hand knowledge
of this “influence” in the corridors of power, himself
as President being unable to challenge it, and unable to do so simply
in the first decade of the American Empire. He was warning against
the influence of the interconnected relationship and organized power
of the military, government, and industry, in that the growing influence
of this “complex” was so vast that it threatened to take
over the government and subvert democracy itself. It was the functions
of this complex that saw profit created through war and empire,
and thus, there was a constant drive and impetus towards pursuing
empire and resorting to war. If you build a massive military structure,
you are going to use it; if it is profitable to go to war, you will
go to war.

The “Secret
Government” and the Bay of Pigs

In January
of 1959, the Cuban Revolution ousted the military strong man and
American-ally Batista, and installed the Communist government of
Fidel Castro. Beginning in October of 1959, the United States began
a covert bombing and strafing campaign against Cuba, and in the
early months of 1960, the US even firebombed Cuban cane fields and
sugar mills. The CIA had organized the Cuban exile community, largely
under the leadership of former supporters of Batista, in Florida
to mount an operation aimed at overthrowing the revolutionary government.[6]

The CIA and
the American military, headed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (itself
a creation of the National Security Act of 1947), were dead-set
against Cuba. The idea of a Communist government so close to the
United States was seen as completely unacceptable to the National
Security State. Thus, in less than three months of JFK becoming
president, in April of 1961, the CIA launched the Bay of Pigs invasion
of Cuba, in which nearly 2,000 Cuban exiles trained and supported
by the CIA were to invade from the sea. However, Kennedy refused
to go along with the operation and cancelled the air support for
the invasion, leading to the failure of the invasion and capture
of the exiles, and “the CIA, military, and Cuban exiles bitterly
blamed Kennedy.” Kennedy, in turn, blamed the CIA and the Pentagon,
and fired CIA Director Allen Dulles and Deputy Director of the CIA,
Charles Cabell in January of 1962.[7]

The Bay of
Pigs reveals some startling information about the “Deep Politics”
surrounding the Kennedy administration. “Deep politics”
is a term popularized by former Canadian diplomat, author and academic
Peter Dale Scott, who – in my opinion – is one of the
pre-eminent researchers of the “secret government.” Scott
defines “deep politics” as “looking beneath public
formulations of policy issues to the bureaucratic, economic, and
ultimately covert and criminal activities which underlie them.”[8]
In short, “deep politics” is the functions and actions
of the “secret government”.

David Talbott,
former Editor-in-Chief of Salon, wrote a book about the assassinations
of JFK and Robert Kennedy, in which he undertook in depth research
into what can only be described as the “deep politics”
of their deaths. In it, he explained that upon JFK becoming President,
Allen Dulles had felt that as he and his late brother John Foster
Dulles (who died in 1959) “had largely run America’s foreign
policy between the two of them during the 1950s,” that “he
expected to continue the family’s policies undisturbed under
the new, inexperienced president.” Dulles, in the presence
of a close Kennedy confidante, even “started boasting that
he was still carrying out his brother Foster’s foreign policy,”
saying, “that’s a much better policy. I’ve chosen
to follow that one.” The Kennedy confidante who was present
informed JFK who was furious, “God damn it! … Did he really
say that?”[9]

Richard Bissell,
a man who formerly worked with the OSS (the precursor to the CIA),
as well as the Ford Foundation, was brought into the CIA by Allen
Dulles in 1958 as the Deputy Director for Plans, overseeing and
personally running the covert plots to overthrow Arbenz in Guatemala,
Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in
the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam and primarily
Fidel Castro. He was in charge of the Bay of Pigs operation. In
short, Bissell was a devout acolyte of the “secret government.”
Bissell reassembled the key CIA officers involved in the Guatemala
coup for the Bay of Pigs operations, including Tracy Barnes, David
Atlee Phillips, Howard Hunt (who would later become famous as one
of the Watergate burglars) and David Sanchez Morales.[10]

The Bay of
Pigs operations, which was organized in the Eisenhower administration,
under the guidance of his Vice President, Richard Nixon, was briefed
to Kennedy upon becoming president. JFK “made it clear to Dulles
and Bissell that he would not commit the full military might of
the United States to the Bay of Pigs operation.”[11] During
the Bay of Pigs operation, when it was clear that the operation
would fail without military support, a major meeting took place
with Kennedy, his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Vice President
Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer, as well as Admiral Burke,
the Navy Chief and Richard Bissell of the CIA. Bissell urged the
president to take military action, with the support of Navy Chief
Burke. Kennedy had refused, and he “was beginning to realize
that his top military and intelligence chiefs did not take his instructions
that seriously.”[12]

Kennedy had
repeatedly told Bissell in the lead up to the Bay of Pigs that as
president, he reserved the right to abort the operation at any time.
Yet Bissell had informed the military leaders of the Bay of Pigs
operation that there were forces in the White House trying to stop
it from going forward, and if they succeeded, he advised them to
“mutiny against their U.S. advisors and proceed with the invasion.”
Further, on the first day of the invasion, Admiral Burke, the Navy
Chief, had sent “the U.S. aircraft carrier Essex and helicopter
landing ship Boxer close to Cuban shore, in violation of Kennedy’s
order to keep U.S. ships fifty miles away.”[13] This was the
true first test of the young president:

"The
country’s military and intelligence chiefs had clearly believed
they could sandbag the young, untested commander-in-chief into
joining the battle. But he had stunned them by refusing to escalate
the fighting."[14]

As declassified
CIA documents later revealed, the CIA itself knew that the operation
was doomed to fail, and had hid these bleak reports from Kennedy
and went ahead with the operation anyhow. Startlingly, “the
CIA knew that it couldn’t accomplish this type of overt paramilitary
mission without direct Pentagon participation,” and further,
the CIA had “discovered in advance that the plan had been leaked
to Soviet intelligence” and Castro, who even knew the date
of the attack. Dulles, therefore, “regarded the band of Cuban
exiles who were about to hit the beaches as mere cannon fodder,
a device to trigger the real invasion by the U.S. military.”[15]

On the evening
that the mission had finally come to an abrupt failure, Allen Dulles
sat down to dinner with Richard Nixon, “the man who had spearheaded
the plan as vice president,” and Dulles proclaimed, “This
is the worst day of my life!” Thus, the Bay of Pigs failure
“sent shockwaves through the [central intelligence] agency,
particularly among the agents who had worked closely with the Cuban
émigrés on the operation.”[16]

Following the
Bay of Pigs, “the heavens ripped open for the Kennedy administration”
and “never came back together,” as JFK became “estranged
from his national security team.” CIA agents like Howard Hunt,
who were involved in the operation, would proclaim that the United
States “owed the Cuban people a blood debt,” and Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, General Lyman Lemnitzer proclaimed that Kennedy’s
actions were “unbelievable… absolutely reprehensible, almost
criminal.” With Kennedy’s first test as president, the
nations’ top military and intelligence officials saw him “to
be a dangerously weak link at the top of the chain of command.”[17]

Kennedy, for
his part, said, “I’ve got to do something about those
CIA bastards,” and also “lashed out at the Joint Chiefs.”
JFK publicly took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs failure, but
“CIA and Pentagon officials knew that he privately spread the
word that they were to blame.” Subsequently, Kennedy threatened
to “shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces, and scatter it
to the winds.”[18]

Kennedy
Versus the “Kings” of the National Security State

Shortly after
the Bay of Pigs, the Joint Chiefs approached Kennedy urging him
to invade the Southeast Asian country of Laos, “to respond
to the advances of Communist insurgents,” yet Kennedy quickly
dismissed their advice, and Kennedy had personally thought of Chairman
Lemnitzer as “a dope.” However, “Kennedy was acutely
aware of how formidable the institutional powers were that he confronted.”
As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an old family friend
of the Kennedy’s explained, regarding JFK confiding in him,
that Kennedy was “seared” by the Bay of Pigs experience,
and “he had experienced the extreme power that these groups
had, these various insidious influences of the CIA and Pentagon,
on civilian policy.” JFK even questioned if he, as president,
could “ever be strong enough to really rule these two powerful
agencies.”[19]

Following the
Bay of Pigs, JFK pulled away from any advice of these National Security
kingpins and began to rely upon his most trusted personal advisers,
and particularly his brother Robert Kennedy, who was the Attorney
General, who would “move into the center of national security
decision making for the rest of his brother’s presidency,”
and took on the responsibility of supervising the CIA.[20]

Kennedy, for
his part, “was more viscerally antiwar than has been recognized
in some quarters,” as he once stated, “I am almost a “peace-at-any-price”
president.” As Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, once
explained, JFK “brought into the presidency the knowledge of
history that many presidents didn’t have when they became president,”
and that JFK had thought that, “the primary responsibility
of the president is to keep the nation out of war if at all possible.”[21]

Arthur Schlesinger,
Special Assistant to President Kennedy, later recalled that, “Certainly
we did not control the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” reflecting on
the deep divisions within the Kennedy administration. The National
Security State’s “secret government,” which had controlled
foreign policy in the previous two administrations of Truman and
Eisenhower, “was not prepared to cede power to the new Kennedy
government. This was soon made clear to the president’s team
by the top military commanders.” In particular, Schlesinger
explained regarding Kennedy’s fears of the military, “Kennedy’s
concern was not that Khrushchev [the Soviet leader] would initiate
something, but that something would go wrong in a Dr. Strangelove
kind of way,” referring to Stanley Kubrick’s film in which
a rogue U.S. general starts World War III. Even Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara was struggling to control the generals under his
command.[22]

General Curtis
LeMay, the Air Force Chief, was a particularly staunch opponent
of the Kennedy administration. He had once mused aloud to a Washington
Post columnist in July of 1961 that he felt “nuclear war would
break out in the final weeks of the year,” and that nuclear
war was “inevitable.” LeMay, as McNamara acknowledged,
was a staunch advocate of “preemptive nuclear war to rid the
world of the Soviet threat,” casually acknowledging that “it
would likely incinerate such major U.S. cities as Washington, New
York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit.” LeMay,
during World War II, made his name by “laying waste to much
of Japan with his infamous firebombing campaign.”[23]

In the summer
of 1961, JFK came under intense pressure from both the military
and intelligence officials in his government “to consider launching
a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.” On July
20, “at a National Security Council meeting, Kennedy was presented
an official plan for a surprise nuclear attack by the Joint Chiefs
chairman, General Lemnitzer, and Allen Dulles,” and Kennedy,
disgusted, got up and left in the middle of the meeting, then remarked
to his Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “and we call ourselves
the human race.”[24] Kennedy had, in the fall of 1961, fired
Allen Dulles, Charles Cabell, the Deputy Director of the CIA, and
Richard Bissell, the Deputy Director of Plans for the CIA. Kennedy
had made himself “Enemy #1” of the National Security State
apparatus. A retired Marine general at the time once “suggested
a coup was in order if the “traitors” could not be voted
out.”[25]

As Robert Kennedy,
the Attorney General, began to increasingly exert supervision over
the CIA, he discovered that the CIA was working with the Mafia in
plots to assassinate Castro. JFK had appointed John McCone as CIA
director to replace Dulles, however, Richard Helms “emerged
as the real power in the agency soon after the downfall of Dulles
and Bissell,” leading one top official to even state that,
“Helms was running the agency,” and that, “anything
McCone found out was by accident.”[26] Richard Helms worked
in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA during World War II, and became
CIA Director of Plans in 1962, running the covert operations of
the CIA.

The Joint
Chiefs Propose a Plan for State-Sponsored Terrorism

In 1962, the
Pentagon was still pushing for a war with Cuba, and was even drawing
up contingency plans for an invasion of Cuba. One such plan, named
Operation Northwoods, was recently declassified. On March 13, 1962,
Chairman of the Joint Chief General Lemnitzer delivered this plan
to McNamara, marked “top secret” and signed by the nation’s
highest military commanders.[27]

Operation Northwoods,
also named “Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba,”
was endorsed by the entire Joint Chiefs, which recommended the operation
go into planning stages, and recommended that the Joint Chiefs assume
responsibility “for both overt and covert military operations”
of the plan.[28] The purpose of the plan was to orchestrate pretexts
for a US military intervention in Cuba, and the Joint Chiefs recommended
that throughout the operations, the US military will be in an “exercise”
mode in order to allow for a “rapid change from exercise to
intervention if Cuban response justifies.”[29]

Among the recommended
provocations and pretexts to justify a war, the Joint Chiefs suggested
that, “a series of well coordinated incidents will be planned
to take place in and around [the US military base at] Guantanamo
to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces,”
including starting rumours, landing “friendly Cubans in uniform”
outside of the base to “stage attack on base” in Cuban
uniform, capturing friendly “saboteurs inside the base,”
and have friendly Cubans “start riots near the base main gate.”[30]
Further recommendations were to “blow up ammunition inside
the base; start fires,” as well as burning aircraft on the
base, or sabotage a ship in the harbor, or to even, “sink [a]
ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims.”[31]

One startling
recommendation was that, “We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo
Bay and blame Cuba,” or that, “we could blow up a drone
(unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters,” and blame
Cuba, and that, “casualty lists in US newspapers would cause
a helpful wave of national indignation.”[32] However, the most
disturbing aspect of Operation Northwoods was the recommendation
that:

"We
could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area,
in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign
could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United
States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida
(real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban
refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in
instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs
in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the
release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement
also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible
government."[33]

The general
even suggested bombing other Latin American countries such as Haiti,
the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Nicaragua and blaming it on
Cuba. They even suggested that a “US military drone aircraft”
could be destroyed by a US military plane that, “properly painted
would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban” aircraft.[34]
The Joint Chiefs further suggested, “hijacking attempts against
civil air and surface craft should appear to continue as harassing
measures condoned by the government of Cuba.” Startlingly,
the plan also recommended concocting a scenario in which an American
plane, possibly consisting of “a group of college students,”
would be flown over Cuba and blown up, to be blamed on Cuba.[35]

So there you
have it, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff put out recommendations for
hijacking US aircraft, staging “false flag” attacks, which
are covert military operations in which they attack selected targets
under the “flag” of another nation/entity in order to
blame that particular entity for the attack, such as the recommendations
for attacking Guantamo Bay by “friendly Cubans” and conducting
a “terror campaign” within the United States, itself.

Three days
after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lemnitzer presented this plan
to McNamara, he was summoned by President Kennedy to the Oval Office
for a discussion of Cuba strategy alongside other National Security
figures. Many of the figures suggested a military invasion of Cuba,
and Lemnitzer jumped at the opportunity to recommend Operation Northwoods,
yet spared the specific operational plans of “blowing up people
on the streets of Miami and the nation’s capital and blaming
it on Castro.” However, “Kennedy was not amused”
and he told the general that, “we were not discussing the use
of U.S. military force.”[36]

Yet, over the
next month, the Joint Chiefs and in particular, Lemnitzer, continued
to press both McNamara and Kennedy for a military invasion of Cuba,
and “after a National Security Council meeting in June, the
president took the general aside and told him he wanted to send
him to Europe to become NATO’s new supreme allied commander.”
Kennedy thus replaced Lemnitzer with Max Taylor.[37]

The Cuban
Missile Crisis: America on the Verge of a Military Coup

Another event
of monumental importance to the conduct of JFK challenging the “secret
government” apparatus of the National Security State was with
the Cuban Missile Crisis, a thirteen-day nuclear standoff between
the United States and the Soviet Union, which was described by one
top official involved as, “the most dangerous moment in human
history.” The crisis was started when US reconnaissance observed
missile bases being built in Cuba by the Soviet Union. It brought
the world closer to nuclear war than ever before or since. During
the crisis, JFK, his brother Bobby, and Robert McNamara:

"were
trying to steer the decision-making process toward the idea of
a naval blockade of Cuba, to stop the flow of nuclear shipments
to the island and to pressure the Soviets into a peaceful resolution
of the crisis. But virtually his entire national security apparatus
was pushing the president to take military action against Cuba.
Leading the charge for an aggressive response were the members
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were urging the president to
launch surprise air strikes on the island and then invade."[38]

Air Force Chief
Curtis LeMay, who had been advocating nuclear war with the Soviet
Union since the early 1950s, thought Cuba was a “sideshow”
and told the President that the United States should “fry it.”
LeMay, himself a member of the Joint Chiefs, “was in the habit
of taking bullying command of Joint Chiefs meetings,” and with
LeMay leading the charge for war, “the other chiefs jumped
into the fray, repeating the Air Force general’s call for immediate
military action.” LeMay even did something remarkable for a
military official:

"He
decided to violate traditional military-civilian boundaries and
issue a barely veiled political threat. If the president responded
weakly to the Soviet challenge in Cuba, he warned him, there would
be political repercussions overseas, where Kennedy’s government
would be perceived as spineless. “And I’m sure a lot
of our own citizens would feel that way too,” LeMay added.
With his close ties to militaristic congressional leaders and
the far right, LeMay left no doubt about the political damage
he could cause the administration. “In other words, you’re
in a pretty bad fix at the present time,” LeMay told Kennedy.[39]

Kennedy asked
him to repeat what he said, LeMay obliged, and Kennedy retorted,
“You’re in there with me.” Kennedy soon left the
meeting with McNamara, “the confrontation with his top military
men had clearly disturbed the commander-in-chief. Later he told
an aide that the administration needed to make sure that the Joint
Chiefs did not start a war without his approval, a chronic fear
of JFK’s.” After Kennedy and McNamara left the meeting,
a secret taping system in the office recorded the conversation between
the generals, who “began profanely condemning Kennedy’s
cautious, incremental approach to the crisis.”[40]

LeMay’s
right-hand man, General Tommy Power, who even LeMay regarded as
“not stable,” had taken “it upon himself to raise
the Strategic Air Command’s alert status to DEFCON-2, one step
from nuclear war,” and ensured that the Soviets knew it. The
White House was completely unaware of Power’s actions at the
time.[41]

As the crisis
continued, Kennedy ordered McNamara “to keep close watch over
the Navy to make sure U.S. vessels didn’t do anything that
would trigger World War III.” Admiral Anderson, Chief of Naval
Operations, who was running the Naval blockade of Cuba, was increasingly
frustrated at McNamara’s “hands-on control” of the
blockade and clashed with the Defense Secretary in the Navy’s
Flag Plot room, suggesting that he didn’t need McNamara’s
advice on managing the blockade, prompting McNamara to respond explaining
that he doesn’t “give a damn” about past procedures
for running blockades, to which Anderson replied, “Mr. Secretary,
you go back to your office and I’ll go to mine and we’ll
take care of things.” As Anderson later recalled, “Apparently
it was the wrong thing to say to somebody of McNamara’s personality,”
as when McNamara left the office, he told his aide, “That’s
the end of Anderson.” Anderson, months after the Cuban Missile
Crisis, was sent to Portugal as ambassador, “where he would
be chummy with dictator Antonio Salazar.”[42]

During the
Cuban Missile Crisis, it wasn’t the Joint Chiefs alone who
were trying to push for war, as the “CIA also played a dangerous
game during the crisis,” as Kennedy had ordered the CIA to
halt all raids against Cuba during the crisis, “to make sure
that no flying sparks from the agency’s secret operations set
off a nuclear conflagration.” However, Bill Harvey, the CIA
agent in charge of “Operation Mongoose,” the CIA plan
which employed the Mafia to attempt to kill Castro, in brazen defiance
of Kennedy’s orders, mobilized “every single team and
asset that we could scrape together” and then dropped them
into Cuba, “in anticipation of the U.S. invasion that the CIA
hoped was soon to follow.”[43]

Robert Kennedy
became the conduit through which the back-channel negotiations took
place with the Soviets that ultimately ended the crisis without
catastrophe. Nikita Khrushchev recounted the situation in his memoirs,
in which he explained that Robert Kennedy “stressed how fragile
his brother’s rule was becoming as the crisis dragged on,”
which struck Khrushchev as “especially urgent.” Robert
Kennedy warned the Soviets that, “If the situation continues
much longer, the president is not sure that the military will not
overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of
control.” Khrushchev even later wrote that, “for some
time we had felt there was a danger that the president would lose
control of his military,” and that, “now he was admitting
this to us himself.” Thus:

“Moscow’s
fear that Kennedy might be toppled in a coup, Khrushchev suggested
in his memoirs, led the Soviets to reach a settlement of the missile
crisis with the president. “We could sense from the tone
of the message that tension in the United States was indeed reaching
a critical point.”"[44]

Thirteen days
after the crisis began, the Soviets announced that they would remove
the missiles from Cuba, with the US agreeing to remove missiles
from US bases in Turkey and “pledging not to invade Cuba,”
which Kennedy and future presidents would honour. At the announcement
of the end to the crisis, General LeMay roared at Kennedy, “It’s
the greatest defeat in our history,” and that, “We should
invade today!” A defense analyst at the Pentagon, Daniel Ellsberg,
who was consulting with Air Force generals and colonels on nuclear
strategy at the end of the crisis, remarked that after the settlement
was reached, “there was virtually a coup atmosphere in Pentagon
circles,” explaining, “not that I had the fear there was
about to be a coup – I just thought it was a mood of hatred
and rage. The atmosphere was poisonous, poisonous.”[45]

What’s
more, the CIA was further enraged at Kennedy, as “for those
militants who were part of the massive juggernaut organized to destroy
the Castro regime, the peaceful resolution of the missile crisis
was a betrayal worse than the Bay of Pigs.”[46]

Going into
1963, however, the anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami continued to
undertake covert actions against Castro. The CIA claimed the groups
got out of its control, “but the rebels were heavily dependent
on agency funding and it was never certain whether the groups’
frequent defiance of Kennedy policy was in fact instigated by their
spymasters in Langley and Miami.”[47]

One of these
groups was the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE), “a particular
favourite of the CIA,” which was founded in 1954 “as a
Catholic student group militantly opposed to the dictator Batista,”
but in 1960 moved to Miami and shifted its operations against Castro,
where its operations were planned by the CIA. A man named Lee Harvey
Oswald became affiliated with the group in August of 1963. Oswald
made contacts with other Cuban exile groups that summer, some of
whom found the “Ex-Marine” to be “suspicious”
and even reported on him to Bobby Kennedy.[48]

Kennedy
Makes Moves for Peace

In June of
1963, Kennedy delivered his famous “Peace Speech” in which
he discussed “the most important topic on earth: world peace.”
Kennedy continued:

"What
kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a
Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.
Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am
talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life
on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to
grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children
– not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and
women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of
peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense
in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively
invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort
to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear
weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered
by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes
no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear
exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed
to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

… First:
Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us
think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is
a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that
war is inevitable – that mankind is doomed – that we
are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not
accept that view. Our problems are manmade – therefore, they
can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem
of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit
have often solved the seemingly unsolvable – and we believe
they can do it again."[49]

Kennedy further
stated, “Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union,”
suggesting an end to the Cold War, and then remarked: “We do
not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans
has already had enough – more than enough – of war and
hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We
shall be alert to try to stop it.” Kennedy famously proclaimed,
“We all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same
air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”[50]

This was not
particularly to the liking of the National Security State, a proclamation
for America to follow “not a strategy of annihilation, but
a strategy of peace.” Kennedy even stated that America would
“never start a war.” As Robert McNamara later recalled,
“the American University speech laid out exactly what Kennedy’s
intentions were,” and that, “If he had lived, the world
would have been different, I feel quite confident of that.”[51]

Kennedy
and Vietnam

While the National
Security State began maneuvering for an escalation of violence in
Vietnam, Kennedy began formulating a plan of his own. He was intent
upon the United States withdrawing from the conflict. However, knowing
that it would prompt a great outcry, he would wait until after the
1964 election. As Kennedy told one of his top aides, Kenny O’Donnell,
“In 1965, I’ll become one of the most unpopular presidents
in history. I’ll be damned everywhere as a Communist appeaser.
But I don’t care. If I tried to pull out completely now from
Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands,
but I can do it after I am reelected. So we had better make damned
sure that I am reelected.”[52]

As Vietnam
came to crisis late in his term, Kennedy was the lone voice against
escalation of military conflict. On October 11, 1963, Kennedy issued
National Security Action Memoranda NSAM 263, authorizing his plans
“to withdraw 1000 U.S. military personnel [from Vietnam] by
the end of 1963,” with the longer goal of withdrawing “the
bulk of U.S. personnel” by the end of 1965. However, Kennedy
ordered that, “no formal announcement be made of the implementation,”
yet on November 20, at a top-level conference, “the secrecy
was lifted,” and it was reported in the New York Times the
following day, which was the day before Kennedy was assassinated.[53]

Following Kennedy’s
continuing stealth moves to avoid an escalation of the conflict
in Vietnam, the majority of his national security bureaucracy “was
in flagrant revolt against him. The Pentagon and CIA were taking
steps to sabotage his troop withdrawal plan.” Further:

"Frustrated
by the growing instability of South Vietnam’s Diem regime,
U.S. officials split over whether to back a military coup to replace
it, with Kennedy himself vacillating back and forth on the question."[54]

An open revolt
took place between the two camps with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge,
“who supported a coup, and Saigon CIA station chief John Richardson,
who backed the increasingly autocratic President Ngo Dinh Diem.”
Richard Starnes, a newspaper correspondent in Saigon, wrote on this
feud, and explained that “a high U.S. official” in Saigon
views the CIA as a “malignancy,” guilty of “insubordination,”
and that he “was not sure even the White House could control
[it] any longer.” The U.S. official added:

"If
the United States ever experiences a [coup attempt] it will come
from the CIA and not the Pentagon… [The CIA] represents a tremendous
power and total unaccountability to anyone."[55]

On November
1, South Vietnamese military plotters killed Diem and his brother
in a coup which “was facilitated when the CIA withdrew Richardson
from Saigon, allowing the agency to cooperate with the South Vietnamese
generals behind the plot.”[56]

Kennedy
is Killed

Throughout
the fall of 1963, “the CIA pursued its own agenda” with
mobsters and militant Cuban exiles, while “the Kennedy’s
struggled to control the sprawling operations related to Cuba.”[57]

While in Dallas,
Texas, on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was killed while
driving in his motorcade along Dealey Plaza. E. Howard Hunt, the
infamous CIA agent who overthrew the government of Guatemala and
worked in the CIA’s anti-Castro Cuban operations, and who later
achieved infamy as one of the Watergate burglars, had his deathbed
confession revealed by his son in 2007. In his confession, E. Howard
Hunt revealed that it was the CIA and Lyndon Banes Johnson who were
behind the assassination, and that he, himself, was involved.[58]

Hunt recalled
that in 1963, he was invited to a secret meeting in a CIA safe house
in Miami by Frank Sturgis, another infamous Watergate burglar, and
a “mob-friendly anti-Castro operative.” At the meeting
was also CIA agent David Morales, someone Hunt referred to as a
“cold-blooded killer,” and William Harvey, another CIA
man. The discussion of the meeting was the Kennedy assassination,
or what they referred to as “the big event.”[59] Bill
Harvey was the man that Richard Helms, CIA Deputy Director for Plans,
had put in charge of the CIA’s anti-Castro Cuban operations,
and who had a particularly antagonizing relationship with Robert
Kennedy, who was trying to supervise Harvey’s operations.[60]

As author Peter
Dale Scott revealed, Vice President Lyndon Johnson “had been,
since 1961, the ally of the Joint Chiefs (and in particular Air
Force General Curtis LeMay) in their unrelenting efforts, against
Kennedy’s repeated refusals, to introduce U.S. combat troops
into Asia.” The Joint Chiefs had thus taken it upon themselves
to keep Johnson more informed than Kennedy on the situation in Southeast
Asia, with Chairman Lemnitzer himself going around Kennedy to Johnson.
The Joint Chiefs created a back channel where they were delivering
“accurate Vietnam reports” to Johnson, “which were
denied to the President.” US Army Intelligence reports produced
in Saigon were delivered to McNamara and Kennedy, which were “false
and optimistic” in order to help “ensure their ongoing
support for the war,” while US Army Intelligence in Honolulu
produced a second set of reports, described as “accurate and
gloomy,” which were supplied to Johnson. When Lemnitzer was
replaced as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the man Kennedy chose
to replace him, General Max Taylor, continued in taking part in
this deception. As Peter Dale Scott explained:

"These
divisive intrigues came to a head at the Honolulu conference of
November 20, 1963, two days before the assassination. At this
meeting the truth about the deterioration of the ineffective war
effort “was presented in detail to those assembled, along
with a plan to widen the war, while the 1,000-man withdrawal [first
publicly acknowledged at the same meeting] was turned into a meaningless
paper drill.”

The tone
of the meeting, in other words, was in keeping with the policies
of the man who would not become President until the shootings
in Dallas two days later."[61]

Thus, “a
group within the military command, dissatisfied with Kennedy’s
limited support, had already begun secretly to plan for the option
preferred by the Vice-President.”[62] Two days after the assassination,
Johnson and his top advisers issued a new policy statement in contrast
to Kennedy’s NSAM 263 issued on October 11, 1963, which called
for a withdrawal of forces from Vietnam. Johnson’s NSAM 273
was finalized on November 26, 1963, four days after the assassination,
of which the key policy innovation was “for the United States
to begin carrying the war north” in Vietnam. On the very same
day Johnson’s NSAM 273 was issued, the Joint Chiefs launched
“accelerated planning for escalation against North Vietnam.”[63]
Roughly one month later, on December 24, 1963, Lyndon Johnson told
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Just get me elected, and then you
can have your war.”[64]

The Warren
Commission: The American Establishment Cover-Up Committee

The Warren
Commission was established by Lyndon Johnson on November 29, 1963,
to investigate the assassination of JFK. Among the members were
Gerald Ford, a Congressman who would later become President of the
United States, and John J. McCloy, a lawyer, banker, former Assistant
Secretary of War in World War II, and former President of the World
Bank. McCloy was chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank from 1953 to 1960,
was chairman of the Ford Foundation from 1958 to 1965, and was a
trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1946 to 1949, and again
between 1953 and 1958. From 1954 until 1970, McCloy was Chairman
of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he was succeeded by David
Rockefeller, a close associate from Chase Manhattan.

Another notable
member of the Warren Commission was none other than Allen Dulles,
the former CIA Director whom Kennedy had fired. An interesting fact
to note is regarding Dulles’ Deputy Director of the CIA whom
Kennedy also fired, Charles Cabell, who was also an Air Force General.
Cabell’s brother, Earle Cabell, happened to be mayor of Dallas
at the time of Kennedy’s assassination. Allen Dulles was the
“Warren Commission’s most active member,” and was
adamant in his “unwillingness to let the Commission’s
investigation get into a most pertinent project, the CIA-Mafia plots
against Castro.”[65]

The Warren
Commission was responsible for producing the idea of the “magic
bullet theory,” which postulated that three bullets fired from
Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository resulted in
the murder of Kennedy. The “lone gunman” and “single
bullet theory” were sold to the American people and not subjected
to criticism by the mainstream media.

Peter Dale
Scott differentiated between the notion of a “secret government”
– with the institutional structure of something like a government
– and “deep politics” – being, rather, the methods
of deception, itself. Thus, it is not within a state structure that
the assassination was conducted, but rather it was in the functions
of an intricate network that transcends government and industry.
Scott explained that, “the President was murdered by a coalition
of forces inside and outside government,” and that, “In
short, Kennedy was killed by the deep political system.”[66]

As a result
of the death of JFK, the National Security State “secret government”
– or the “deep political” system, as it is more accurately
described, got exactly what it wanted with the escalation of the
Vietnam War. The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower
warned the American people about two years prior, had turned the
apparatus of the “secret government” in on the president,
himself. It was a political lynching on a grand scale. And it was
not to be the last.

Notes

[1] CFR, Historical
Roster of Directors and Officers. Council on Foreign Relations

[2] CFR, Continuing
the Inquiry, War and Peace. History of the CFR

[3] Ebrahim
Norouzi, The
Dulles Brothers. The Mossadeq Project: April 7, 2010

[4] James Risen,
Secret
History of the CIA in Iran. The New York Times: 2000

[5] Dwight
D. Eisenhower, Military-Industrial
Complex Speech. Farewell Adddress: January 17, 1961

[6] William
Blum, Killing
Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.
(Common Courage Press: Monroe, Main, 2004), page 186

[7] Prof. Edward
Curtin, JFK
and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Global
Research: November 25, 2009

[8] Peter Dale
Scott, Deep
Politics and the Death of JFK. (University of California
Press, Berkeley, 1993), page 10

[9] David Talbott,
Brothers:
The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. (Free Press, New
York, 2007), page 43

[10] Ibid,
page 44.

[11] Ibid,
page 45.

[12] Ibid,
pages 45-46.

[13] Ibid,
page 46.

[14] Ibid,
page 47.

[15] Ibid,
pages 47-48.

[16] Ibid,
page 49.

[17] Ibid,
page 50.

[18] Ibid,
pages 50-51.

[19] Ibid,
pages 51-52.

[20] Ibid,
pages 52-53.

[21] Ibid,
pages 53-54.

[22] Ibid,
pages 64-65.

[23] Ibid,
pages 66-67.

[24] Ibid,
pages 68-69.

[25] Ibid,
page 75.

[26] Ibid,
pages 86-87.

[27] Ibid,
page 106.

[28] Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Operation
Northwoods: Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba.
March 13, 1962, Washington, D.C.

[29] Ibid,
page 7.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid,
page 8.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid,
pages 8-9.

[34] Ibid,
page 9.

[35] Ibid,
pages 10-11.

[36] David
Talbott, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.
(Free Press, New York, 2007), pages 107-108

[37] Ibid,
page 108.

[38] Ibid,
page 163.

[39] Ibid,
pages 163-165.

[40] Ibid,
pages 165-166.

[41] Ibid,
pages 166-167.

[42] Ibid,
pages 167-168.

[43] Ibid,
page 169.

[44] Ibid,
pages 171-172.

[45] Ibid,
pages 172-173.

[46] Ibid,
page 173.

[47] Ibid,
pages 176-177.

[48] Ibid.

[49] President
John F. Kennedy, Commencement
Address at American University. Washington D.C., June 10, 1963

[50] Ibid.

[51] David
Talbott, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.
(Free Press, New York, 2007), page 206

[52] Ibid,
pages 215-216.

[53] Peter
Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. (University
of California Press, Berkeley, 1993), page 26

[54] David
Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.
(Free Press, New York, 2007), page 217

[55] Ibid,
pages 217-218.

[56] Ibid,
page 218.

[57] Ibid,
page 181.

[58] Ryan Singel,
Who
Killed JFK? Famous Spook Outs the Conspiracy. Wired: April 3,
2007

[59] David
Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.
(Free Press, New York, 2007), pages 402-406

[60] Ibid,
pages 103-105.

[61] Peter
Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. (University
of California Press, Berkeley, 1993), pages 30-32

[62] Ibid,
page 33.

[63] Ibid,
pages 26-28.

[64] Ibid,
page 32.

[65] Ibid,
page 19.

[66] Ibid,
page 299.

Reprinted
from Global Research.

November
25, 2010

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). e is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of
the recent book, The
Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.
He is currently writing a book on "Global Government"
due to be released in 2011 by Global Research Publishers.

Introduction

We are in the
midst of the most explosive development in all of human history.
Humanity is experiencing a simultaneously opposing and conflicting
geopolitical transition, the likes of which has never before been
anticipated or experienced. Historically, the story of humanity
has been the struggle between the free-thinking individual and structures
of power controlled by elites that seek to dominate land, resources
and people. The greatest threat to elites at any time – historically
and presently – is an awakened, critically thinking and politically
stimulated populace. This threat has manifested itself throughout
history, in different places and at different times. Ideas of freedom,
democracy, civil and human rights, liberty and equality have emerged
in reaction and opposition to power structures and elite systems
of control.

The greatest
triumphs of the human mind – whether in art, science or thought
– have arisen out of and challenged great systems of power
and control. The greatest of human misery and tragedy has arisen
out of the power structures and systems that elites always seek
to construct and manage. War, genocide, persecution and human degradation
are directly the result of decisions made by those who control the
apparatus of power, whether the power manifests itself as intellectual,
ecclesiastical, spiritual, militaristic, or scientific. The most
malevolent and ruthless power is that over the free human mind:
if one controls how one thinks, they control the individual itself.
The greatest human achievements are where individuals have broken
free the shackles that bind the mind and let loose the inherent
and undeniable power that lies in each and every individual on this
small little planet.

Currently,
our world is at the greatest crossroads our species has ever experienced.
We are in the midst of the first truly global political awakening,
in which for the first time in all of human history, all of mankind
is politically awakened and stirring; in which whether inadvertently
or intentionally, people are thinking and acting in political terms.
This awakening is most evident in the developing world, having been
made through personal experience to be acutely aware of the great
disparities, disrespect, and domination inherent in global power
structures. The awakening is spreading increasingly to the west
itself, as the majority of the people living in the western developed
nations are thrown into poverty and degradation. The awakening will
be forced upon all people all over the world. Nothing, no development,
ever in human history, has posed such a monumental threat to elite
power structures.

This awakening
is largely driven by the Technological Revolution, which through
technology and electronics, in particular mass media and the internet,
have made it so that people across the world are able to become
aware of global issues and gain access to information from around
the world. The Technological Revolution, thus, has fostered an Information
Revolution which has, in turn, fed the global political awakening.

Simultaneously,
the Technological Revolution has led to another unique and unprecedented
development in human history, and one that is diametrically opposed,
yet directly related to the global political awakening. For the
first time in human history, free humanity is faced with the dominating
threat of a truly global elite, who have at their hands the technology
to impose a truly global system of control: a global scientific
dictatorship. The great danger is that through the exponential growth
in scientific techniques, elites will use these great new powers
to control and dominate all of humanity in such a way that has never
before been experienced.

Through all
of human history, tyrants have used coercive force and terror to
control populations. With the Technological Revolution, elites increasingly
have the ability to control the very biology and psychology of the
individual to a point where it may not be necessary to impose a
system of terror, but rather where the control is implemented on
a much deeper, psychological, subliminal and individual biological
manner. While terror can prevent people from opposing power for
a while, the scientific dictatorship can create a personal psycho-social
condition in which the individual comes to love his or her own slavery;
in which, like a mentally inferior pet, they are made to love their
leaders and accept their servitude.

So we are presented
with a situation in which humanity is faced with both the greatest
threat and the greatest hope that we have ever collectively experienced
in our short human history. This essay, the third part in the series,
“The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom,”
examines the ideas behind the global scientific dictatorship, and
how it may manifest itself presently and in the future, with a particular
focus on the emergence of ‘new eugenics’ as a system of
mass control.

Free humanity
faces the most monumental decision we have ever been presented with:
do we feed and fuel the global political awakening into a true human
psycho-social revolution of the mind, creating a new global political
economy which empowers and liberates all of humanity; or… do we
fall silently into a ‘brave new world’ of a global scientific
oppression, the likes of which have never before been experienced,
and whose dominance would never be more difficult to challenge and
overcome?

We can either
find a true freedom, or descend into a deep despotism. We are not
powerless before this great ideational beast. We have, at our very
fingertips the ability to use technology to our benefit and to re-shape
the world so that it benefits the people of the world and not simply
the powerful. It must be freedom for all or freedom for none.

What is
the ‘Scientific Dictatorship’?

In 1932, Aldous
Huxley wrote his dystopian novel, Brave New World, in which
he looked at the emergence of the scientific dictatorships of the
future. In his 1958 essay, “Brave New World Revisited,”
Huxley examined how far the world had come in that short period
since his book was published, and where the world was heading. Huxley
wrote that:

In politics
the equivalent of a fully developed scientific theory or philosophical
system is a totalitarian dictatorship. In economics, the equivalent
of a beautifully composed work of art is the smoothly running
factory in which the workers are perfectly adjusted to the machines.
The Will to Order can make tyrants out of those who merely aspire
to clear up a mess. The beauty of tidiness is used as a justification
for despotism.

Huxley explained
that, “The future dictator’s subjects will be painlessly
regimented by a corps of highly trained social engineers,”
and he quotes one “advocate of this new science” as saying
that, “The challenge of social engineering in our time is like
the challenge of technical engineering fifty years ago. If the first
half of the twentieth century was the era of technical engineers,
the second half may well be the era of social engineers.” Thus,
proclaims Huxley, “The twenty-first century, I suppose, will
be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system and
Brave New World.”

In 1952, Bertrand
Russell, a British philosopher, historian, mathematician, and social
critic wrote the book, “The Impact of Science on Society,”
in which he warned and examined how science, and the technological
revolution, was changing and would come to change society. In his
book, Russell explained that:

I think the
subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.
Mass psychology is, scientifically speaking, not a very advanced
study… This study is immensely useful to practical men, whether
they wish to become rich or to acquire the government. It is,
of course, as a science, founded upon individual psychology, but
hitherto it has employed rule-of-thumb methods which were based
upon a kind of intuitive common sense. Its importance has been
enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda.
Of these the most influential is what is called ‘education’.
Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the Press, the
cinema and the radio play an increasing part.

What is essential
in mass psychology is the art of persuasion. If you compare a
speech of Hitler’s with a speech of (say) Edmund Burke, you
will see what strides have been made in the art since the eighteenth
century. What went wrong formerly was that people had read in
books that man is a rational animal, and framed their arguments
on this hypothesis. We now know that limelight and a brass band
do more to persuade than can be done by the most elegant train
of syllogisms. It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able
to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young
and is provided by the State with money and equipment.

This subject
will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under
a scientific dictatorship.

Russell went
on to analyze the question of whether a ‘scientific dictatorship’
is more stable than a democracy, on which he postulated:

Apart from
the danger of war, I see no reason why such a regime should be
unstable. After all, most civilised and semi-civilised countries
known to history have had a large class of slaves or serfs completely
subordinate to their owners. There is nothing in human nature
that makes the persistence of such a system impossible. And the
whole development of scientific technique has made it easier than
it used to be to maintain a despotic rule of a minority. When
the government controls the distribution of food, its power is
absolute so long as it can count on the police and the armed forces.
And their loyalty can be secured by giving them some of the privileges
of the governing class. I do not see how any internal movement
of revolt can ever bring freedom to the oppressed in a modern
scientific dictatorship.

Drawing on
the concept popularized by Aldous Huxley – of people loving
their servitude – Bertrand Russell explained that under a scientific
dictatorship:

It is to
be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give
governments much more control over individual mentality than they
now have even in totalitarian countries. Fichte laid it down that
education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils
have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest
of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their
schoolmasters would have wished… Diet, injections, and injunctions
will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character
and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable,
and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically
impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves
happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

Russell explained
that, “The completeness of the resulting control over opinion
depends in various ways upon scientific technique. Where all children
go to school, and all schools are controlled by the government,
the authorities can close the minds of the young to everything contrary
to official orthodoxy.” Russell later proclaimed in his book
that, “a scientific world society cannot be stable unless there
is a world government.” He elaborated:

Unless there
is a world government which secures universal birth control, there
must be from time to time great wars, in which the penalty of
defeat is widespread death by starvation. That is exactly the
present state of the world, and some may hold that there is no
reason why it should not continue for centuries. I do not myself
believe that this is possible. The two great wars that we have
experienced have lowered the level of civilization in many parts
of the world, and the next is pretty sure to achieve much more
in this direction. Unless, at some stage, one power or group of
powers emerges victorious and proceeds to establish a single government
of the world with a monopoly of armed force, it is clear that
the level of civilization must continually decline until scientific
warfare becomes impossible – that is until science is extinct.

Russell explains
that eugenics plays a central feature in the construction of any
world government scientific dictatorship, stating that, “Gradually,
by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers
and ruled will increase until they become almost different species.
A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized
insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.”

In a 1962 speech
at UC Berkeley, Aldous Huxley spoke about the real world becoming
the ‘Brave New World’ nightmare he envisaged. Huxley spoke
primarily of the ‘Ultimate Revolution’ that focuses on
‘behavioural controls’ of people. Huxley said of the ‘Ultimate
Revolution’:

In the past,
we can say, that all revolutions have essentially aimed at changing
the environment in order to change the individual. There’s
been the political revolution, the economic revolution . . . the
religious revolution. All these aimed as I say not directly at
the human being but at his surroundings, so by modifying his surroundings
you did achieve – at one remove – an effect upon the
human being.

Today, we
are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the
‘Ultimate Revolution’ – the ‘Final Revolution’
– where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows.
Well needless to say some kind of direct action on human mind-bodies
has been going on since the beginning of time, but this has generally
been of a violent nature. The techniques of terrorism have been
known from time immemorial, and people have employed them with
more-or-less ingenuity, sometimes with utmost crudity, sometimes
with a good deal of skill acquired with a process of trial and
error – finding out what the best ways of using torture,
imprisonments, constraints of various kinds . . .

If you are
going to control any population for any length of time, you must
have some measure of consent. It’s exceedingly difficult
to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely, it can function
for a fairly long time; but sooner or later you have to bring
in an element of persuasion, an element of getting people to consent
to what is happening to them.

Well it seems
to me the nature of the Ultimate Revolution with which we are
now faced is precisely this: that we are in process of developing
a whole series of techniques, which will enable the controlling
oligarchy – who have always existed and will presumably always
exist – to get people to love their servitude. This is the
ultimate in malevolent revolution…

There seems
to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of Ultimate
Control, this method of control, by which people can be made to
enjoy a state of affairs by which any decent standard they ought
not to enjoy; the enjoyment of servitude . . .

I am inclined
to think that the scientific dictatorships of the future –
and I think there are going to be scientific dictatorships in
many parts of the world – will be probably a good deal nearer
to the Brave New World pattern than to the 1984 pattern. They
will be a good deal nearer, not because of any humanitarian qualms
in the scientific dictators, but simply because the ‘brave
new world’ pattern is probably a good deal more efficient
than the other. That if you can get people to consent to the state
of affairs in which they are living – the state of servitude
– if you can do this, then you are likely to have a much
more stable, a much more lasting society; much more easily controllable
society than you would if you were relying wholly on clubs, and
firing squads and concentration camps.

In 1961, President
Eisenhower delivered his farewell address to the nation in which
he warned of the dangers to democracy posed by the military-industrial
complex: the interconnected web of industry, the military, and politics
creating the conditions for constant war. In that same speech, Eisenhower
warned America and the world of another important change in society:

Today, the
solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed
by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields.
In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead
of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution
in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved,
a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual
curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of
new electronic computers.

The prospect
of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment,
project allocations, and the power of money is ever present –
and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding
scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we
must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public
policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological
elite.

In 1970, Zbigniew
Brzezinski wrote about “the gradual appearance of a more controlled
and directed society,” in the “technetronic revolution”;
explaining:

Such a society
would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power
would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how. Unhindered
by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would
not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest
modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping
society under close surveillance and control. Under such circumstances,
the scientific and technological momentum of the country would
not be reversed but would actually feed on the situation it exploits.

New Eugenics

Many sciences
and large social movements are directed by the same foundations
and money that financed the eugenics movement in the early 20th
century. The Rockefeller foundations, Ford, Carnegie, Mellon, Harriman,
and Morgan money that flowed into eugenics led directly to ‘scientific
racism,’ and ultimately the Holocaust in World War II. Following
the Holocaust, Hitler had discredited the eugenics movement he admired
so much in America. So the movement branched off into forming several
other social engineering projects: population control, genetics,
and environmentalism. The same foundations that laid the foundations
for eugenic ideology – the belief in a biological superiority
and right to rule (justifying their power) – then laid the
foundations for these and other new social and scientific movements.

Major environmental
and conservation organizations were founded with Rockefeller and
Ford Foundation money, which then continued to be central sources
of funding to this day; while the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was
founded in 1961 by Sir Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley’s brother,
who was also the President of the British Eugenics Society. Prince
Bernhard of the Netherlands became the organization’s first
president. Prince Bernhard also happened to be one of the founders
of the elite global think tank, the Bilderberg Group, which he co-founded
in 1954; and he was previous to that, a member of the Nazi Party
and an SS officer. Sir Julian Huxley also happened to be the first
Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). In 1946, Huxley wrote a paper titled,
“UNESCO: It’s Purpose and its Philosophy.” In it,
he wrote that the general focus of UNESCO:

is to help
the emergence of a single world culture, with its own philosophy
and background of ideas, and with its own broad purpose. This
is opportune, since this is the first time in history that the
scaffolding and the mechanisms for world unification have become
available, and also the first time that man has had the means
(in the shape of scientific discovery and its applications) of
laying a world-wide foundation for the minimum physical welfare
of the entire human species…

At the moment,
it is probable that the indirect effect of civilisation is dysgenic
instead of eugenic; and in any case it seems likely that the dead
weight of genetic stupidity, physical weakness, mental instability,
and disease-proneness, which already exist in the human species,
will prove too great a burden for real progress to be achieved.
Thus even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy
will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible,
it will be important for Unesco to see that the eugenic problem
is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is
informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable
may at least become thinkable…

Still another
and quite different type of borderline subject is that of eugenics.
It has been on the borderline between the scientific and the unscientific,
constantly in danger of becoming a pseudo-science based on preconceived
political ideas or on assumptions of racial or class superiority
and inferiority. It is, however, essential that eugenics should
be brought entirely within the borders of science, for, as already
indicated, in the not very remote future the problem of improving
the average quality of human beings is likely to become urgent;
and this can only be accomplished by applying the findings of
a truly scientific eugenics…

It is worth
pointing out that the applications of science at once bring us
up against social problems of various sorts. Some of these are
direct and obvious. Thus the application of genetics in eugenics
immediately raises the question of values – what qualities
should we desire to encourage in the human beings of the future?

On page 6 of
the UNESCO document, Sir Julian Huxley wrote that, “in order
to carry out its work, an organisation such as Unesco needs not
only a set of general aims and objects for itself, but also a working
philosophy, a working hypothesis concerning human existence and
its aims and objects, which will dictate, or at least indicate,
a definite line of approach to its problems.” While much of
the language of equality and education sounds good and benevolent,
it is based upon a particular view of humanity as an irrational,
emotionally driven organism which needs to be controlled. Thus,
the ‘principle of equality’ becomes “The Fact of
Inequality”:

Finally we
come to a difficult problem – that of discovering how we
can reconcile our principle of human equality with the biological
fact of human inequality… The democratic principle of equality,
which is also Unesco’s, is a principle of equality of opportunity
– that human beings should be equal before the law, should
have equal opportunities for education, for making a living, for
freedom of expression and movement and thought. The biological
absence of equality, on the other hand, concerns the natural endowments
of man and the fact of genetic difference in regard to them.

There are
instances of biological inequality which are so gross that they
cannot be reconciled at all with the principle of equal opportunity.
Thus low-grade mental defectives cannot be offered equality of
educational opportunity, nor are the insane equal with the sane
before the law or in respect of most freedoms. However, the full
implications of the fact of human inequality have not often been
drawn and certainly need to be brought out here, as they are very
relevant to Unesco’s task.

Many of these
“genetic inequalities” revolve around the idea of intellectual
superiority: the idea that there is no equality among the intellectually
inferior and superior. That inequality is derived from human biology
– from genetics; it is a “human fact.” It just so
happens that elites who propagate this ideology, also happen to
view the masses as intellectually inferior; thus, there can be no
social equality in a world with a technological intellectual elite.
So eugenics must be employed, as the UENSCO paper explains, to address
the issues of raising human welfare to a manageable level; that
the time will come where elites will need to address the whole of
humanity as a single force, and with a single voice. Eugenics is
about the social organization and control of humanity. Ultimately,
eugenics is about the engineering of inequality. In genetics, elites
found a way to take discrimination down to the DNA.

Genetics
as Eugenics

Award-winning
author and researcher, Edwin Black, wrote an authoritative history
of eugenics in his book, “War Against the Weak,” in which
he explained that, “the incremental effort to transform eugenics
into human genetics forged an entire worldwide infrastructure,”
with the founding of the Institute for Human Genetics in Copenhagen
in 1938, led by Tage Kemp, a Rockefeller Foundation eugenicist,
and was financed with money from the Rockefeller Foundation. While
not abandoning the eugenics goals, the new re-branded eugenics movement
“claimed to be eradicating poverty and saving the environment.”

In a 2001 issue
of Science Magazine, Garland Allen, a scientific historian,
wrote about genetics as a modern form of eugenics. He began by citing
a 1998 article in Time Magazine which proclaimed that, “Personality,
temperament, even life choices. New studies show it’s mostly in
your genes.” Garland explains the implications:

Coat-tailing
on major advances in genetic biotechnology, these articles portray
genetics as the new "magic bullet" of biomedical science
that will solve many of our recurrent social problems. The implication
is that these problems are largely a result of the defective biology
of individuals or even racial or ethnic groups. If aggressive
or violent behavior is in the genes, so the argument goes, then
the solution lies in biomedical intervention – gene therapy
in the distant future and pharmacotherapy (replacing the products
of defective genes with drug substitutes) in the immediate future.

By promoting
such claims, are we heading toward a new version of eugenics?
Are we getting carried away with the false promise of a technological
fix for problems that really lie in the structure of our society?
My answer to these questions is "yes," but with some
important qualifications that derive from the different historical
and social contexts of the early 1900s and the present…

The term
eugenics was coined in 1883 by the Victorian polymath Francis
Galton, geographer, statistician, and first cousin of Charles
Darwin. It meant to him "truly- or well-born," and referred
to a plan to encourage the "best people" in society
to have more children (positive eugenics) and to discourage or
prevent the "worst elements" of society from having
many, if any, children (negative eugenics). Eugenics became solidified
into a movement in various countries throughout the world in the
first three decades of the 20th century, but nowhere more solidly
than in the United States and, after World War I, in Germany.

While genetic
traits such as eye colour and the like were proven to be hereditary,
“eugenicists were more interested in the inheritance of social
behaviors, intelligence, and personality.” Further:

American
eugenicists also strove to disseminate the results of eugenic
research to the public and to lawmakers. They supported the idea
of positive eugenics [encouraging the ‘best’ to become
better], but focused most of their energies on negative eugenics
[to encourage the ‘worst’ to become fewer]. Eugenicists
wrote hundreds of articles for popular magazines, published dozens
of books for the general (and some for the scientific) reader,
prepared exhibits for schools and state fairs, made films, and
wrote sermons and novels.

American eugenicists,
fully backed by the financial support of the major American philanthropic
fortunes, passed eugenics legislation in over 27 states across the
United States, often in the form of forced sterilizations for the
mentally ‘inferior’, so that, “By the 1960s, when
most of these laws were beginning to be repealed, more than 60,000
people had been sterilized for eugenic purposes.” As Garland
Allen wrote:

For the wealthy
benefactors that supported eugenics, such as the Carnegie, Rockefeller,
Harriman, and Kellogg philanthropies, eugenics provided a means
of social control in a period of unprecedented upheaval and violence.
It was these same economic elites and their business interests
who introduced scientific management and organizational control
into the industrial sector…

[In 1994]
we saw the resurrection of claims that there are genetic differences
in intelligence between races, leading to different socio-economic
status. Claims about the genetic basis for criminality, manic
depression, risk-taking, alcoholism, homosexuality, and a host
of other behaviors have also been rampant in scientific and especially
popular literature. Much of the evidence for such claims is as
controversial today as in the past.

We seem to
be increasingly unwilling to accept what we view as imperfection
in ourselves and others. As health care costs skyrocket, we are
coming to accept a bottom-line, cost-benefit analysis of human
life. This mind-set has serious implications for reproductive
decisions. If a health maintenance organization (HMO) requires
in utero screening, and refuses to cover the birth or care of
a purportedly "defective" child, how close is this to
eugenics? If gene or drug therapy is substituted for improving
our workplace or school environments, our diets and our exercise
practices, how close is this to eugenics? Significant social changes
are expensive, however. If eugenics means making reproductive
decisions primarily on the basis of social cost, then we are well
on that road.

Genetics unleashes
an unprecedented power into human hands: the power of unnatural
creation and the manipulation of biology. We do not yet fully understand
nor comprehend the implications of genetic manipulation in our food,
plants, animals, and in humans, themselves. What is clear is that
we are changing the very biology of our environment and ourselves
in it. While there are many clear and obvious benefits to genetic
technology, such as the ability to enhance ailing senses (sight,
hearing, etc.) and cure diseases, the positive must be examined
and discussed with the negative repercussions of genetic manipulation
so as to better direct the uses of this powerful technology.

Debates on
issues such as stem-cell research and genetic manipulation often
focus on a science versus religion aspect, where science seeks to
benevolently cure mankind of its ailments and religion seeks to
preserve the sanctity of ‘creation’. This is an irrational
and narrow manner to conduct a real debate on this monumental issue,
painting the issue as black and white, which it most certainly is
not. Science can be used for good as well as bad, and human history,
most especially that of the 20th century, is nothing if not evidence
for that fact. Incredible scientific ingenuity went into the creation
of great weapons; the manipulation of the atom to kill millions
in an instant, or the manufacturing of biological and chemical weapons.
The problem with the interaction of science and power is that with
such great power comes the temptation to use and abuse it. If the
ability to create a weapon like an atom bomb seems possible, most
certainly there are those who seek to make it probable. Where there
is temptation, there is human weakness.

So while genetics
can be used for benevolent purposes and for the betterment of humankind,
so too can it be used to effectively create a biological caste system,
where in time it would be feasible to see a break in the human race,
where as human advancement technologies become increasingly available,
their use is reserved to the elite so that there comes a time where
there is a biological separation in the human species. Oliver Curry,
an evolutionary theorist from the London School of Economics predicted
that “the human race will have reached its physical peak by
the year 3000” and that, “The human race will one day
split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling
elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures.”
Such was the plot of H.G. Wells’ classic book, The
Time Machine. Wells was himself a prominent eugenicist at
the turn of the 20th century. While this would be a long time from
now, its potential results from the decisions we make today.

Read
the rest of the article

July
15, 2010

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.

Introduction

As outlined
in Part 1 of this series, “The
Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom,” there
are two major geopolitical realities in the world today, both largely
brought about as a result of the “Technological Revolution”
in which technology and electronics have come to define and shape
our society.

The Technological
Revolution has led to a diametrically opposed, antagonistic, and
conflicting geopolitical reality: never before has humanity been
so awakened to issues of power, exploitation, imperialism and domination;
and simultaneously, never before have elites been so transnational
and global in orientation, and with the ability to impose such a
truly global system of scientific despotism and political oppression.
These are the two major geopolitical realities of the world today.
Never in all of human history has mankind been so capable of achieving
a true global political psycho-social awakening; nor has humanity
ever been in such danger of being subjected to a truly global scientific
totalitarianism, potentially more oppressive than any system known
before, and without a doubt more technologically capable of imposing
a permanent despotism upon humanity. So we are filled with hope,
but driven by urgency. In all of human history, never has the potential
nor the repercussions of human actions and ideas ever been so monumental.

Not only is
the awakening global in its reach, but in its very nature. It creates
within the individual, an awareness of the global condition. So
it is a ‘global awakening’ both in the external environment,
and in the internal psychology. This new reality in the world, coupled
with the fact that the world’s population has never been so
vast, presents a challenge to elites seeking to dominate people
all over the world who are aware and awakened to the realities of
social inequality, war, poverty, exploitation, disrespect, imperialism
and domination. This directly implies that these populations will
be significantly more challenging to control: economically, politically,
socially, psychologically and spiritually. Thus, from the point
of view of the global oligarchy, the only method of imposing order
and control – on this unique and historical human condition
– is through the organized chaos of economic crises, war, and
the rapid expansion and institutionalization of a global scientific
dictatorship. Our hope is their fear; and our greatest fear is their
only hope.

This essay
(Part II) will undertake an examination of these two geopolitical
realities on a national scale, focusing primarily on the “American
Awakening.”

The American
Awakening

In the past
decade, there has been an enormous surge in popular political activism,
which has corresponded to the expansion of imperialism, exploitation
and despotism in the world. The events of September 11th, 2001,
sparked two major geopolitical events. The first was the implementation
of the Bush Doctrine – the “War on Terror” –
which was organized in response to the terrorist attacks. This imperialist
expansion led to the war and occupation of Afghanistan, the war
on Iraq and subsequent occupation, the war in Lebanon in 2006, the
war on Somalia, continuing military expansionism and imposition
in the Palestinian territories, as well as expansive covert operations
in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and around the world.

The second
major geopolitical trend instigated by the 9/11 attacks was the
formation of what has come to be known as the “9/11 Truth Movement,”
in which millions of people around the world, including thousands
of academics, architects, engineers, government officials, intelligence
and military officials and other professionals, as well as an exponentially
growing abundance of people in the general population internationally
have sought to question and challenge the official accounts of the
events of 9/11. Like all activist groups, there are fringe and radical
elements within the movement, those who claim that “no planes”
were used in the attacks, or that the attacks were undertaken by
Israel – with anti-Semitic undertones – or other such
fringe theories. Regardless of the fringe elements, the main focus
of the movement is based around the fact that the official story
of events does not stand up to any form of independent and unbiased,
rational analysis. The media for years ignored the growing international
movement, but only in recent years have acknowledged the movement;
however, they did not address the movement by analyzing the information
and issues, but rather by seeking to discredit and demonize the
political movement, focusing on the fringe elements and beliefs
and applying labels of “conspiracy theorist,” attempting
to discredit anyone who questions the official story.

In 2006, Time
Magazine acknowledged that the 9/11 Truth Movement is not a “fringe
movement,” but is, in fact, “a mainstream political reality.”
They also cited a major political poll by Scripps-Howard in 2006,
which revealed that 36% of Americans think it is “very likely”
or “somewhat likely” that government officials either
allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks
themselves.

The growth
of this movement spurred on major new movements and political activism,
driven almost exclusively by organized and ‘politically awakened’
civilians. Driven largely by the Internet, this movement has awakened
a mass of people globally to the political and strategic reality
of what is known – in military terms – as a “false
flag operation,” in which an attack is carried out against
a certain target, where those undertaking the attack fly the flag
of someone else (i.e., “false flag”) in an effort to implicate
them in the attack; and thus the response to an attack would be
against the perceived attackers. It is, essentially, a covert military
stratagem: a strategic deception. The Greek dramatist and playwright
Aeschylus wrote that, “In war, the first casualty is truth.”
A false flag attack is an act of war that is deliberately designed
to deceive and hide the truth. It is an attack carried out and blamed
on one’s enemy in order to justify implementing a political
agenda. Governments have used such tactics for centuries, and especially
western nations in the past half-century.

This movement
has spawned an activist resurgence in other global issues, such
as the global economic system, and most notably, the central banking
system, particularly the Federal Reserve. While many Americans knew
next to nothing about their central bank, the Federal Reserve, a
growing movement of Americans and others around the world were educating
themselves about the Federal Reserve System and the global banking
system in general. Many found a leader in a Texas Congressman named
Ron Paul, who campaigned on the Republican ticket for President
in 2008, and who drew the widest grassroots support from across
the nation of any Republican candidates. Among Democrats, “9/11
Truthers” and others critical of US foreign policy came to
find a passionate leader in Cynthia McKinney, who was one of the
lone voices in Congress to directly challenge the Bush administration
on the official version of events, and has challenged the election
fraud in 2000 and 2004, conducted a Congressional hearing on covert
activities in Africa, exposing the hand of western nations behind
the Rwandan genocide and Congo Civil War.

In late 2008,
as the government began its financial bailout of the banks, the
“End the Fed” movement emerged in sporadic protests at
the 12 Federal Reserve Banks located around the country, and over
40 protests took place across the nation within a matter of months.

The “Homeland
Security State” Targets Dissenters

With the increasing
militarization of foreign policy, we also see the increasing militarization
of domestic politics, and most notably the emergence of a high-tech
surveillance police state: a “Homeland Security State.”
National and international elites are in the process of incrementally
constructingv a u201Cnew totalitarianismu201D in replacing democracy. Civil
rights and freedoms are dismantled through anti-terrorist legislation,
wiretapping and internet surveillance are rampant and expansive,
“watch lists” are constructed, which often include the
names of dissenters, and the military is increasingly poised to
partake in policing. Further, over the past decade, we have seen
the rapid expansion of “Continuity of Government” (COG)
plans, which plan for the suspension of the Constitution and imposition
of martial law in the event of an emergency. At this point in American
society, if there was a rapid and expansive economic collapse or
another major terrorist attack on US soil, America would transform
into a military government, more fascist in nature than anything;
but equipped with an arsenal and “technetronic” police
state the likes of which no dictator in history has had access to.
Freedom has never been so threatened; yet, people have never been
so mobilized in modern history to challenge the threats to freedom
and democracy in America, in the west, and in the world.

In 2003, General
Tommy Franks gave an interview with Cigar Aficionado magazine in
which he elaborated on this concept. Tommy Franks was the former
Commander of the Pentagon’s Central Command over the Middle
East, and thus he was the top General overseeing the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq. In his interview with the magazine, Franks stated that
the objective of terrorism is “to change the mannerisms, the
behavior, the sociology and, ultimately, the anthropology of a society,”
and thus, in the event of another major terrorist attack in America
or in the West:

the western
world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that
is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years
in this grand experiment that we call democracy. Now, in a practical
sense, what does that mean? It means the potential of a weapon
of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive casualty-producing
event somewhere in the western world – it may be in the United
States of America – that causes our population to question
our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in
order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event.
Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric
of our Constitution.

One interesting
facet that very little is known about in the militarization of domestic
society and incremental totalitarianism is how the coercive state
apparatus, while being justified under the guise of fighting terrorism
or “protecting the Homeland,” is in fact being directed
against citizen activists and popular political movements. For example,
following 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security established
what are known as “Fusion Centers,” set up all over the
United States, and which are designed as “information sharing
and collecting” hubs, in which agencies like the CIA, FBI,
Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the US Military collect
and analyze information together. As of July 2009, there were 72
acknowledged Fusion Centers around the United States. Think of them
as local surveillance centers, because that’s what they are.

Fusion Centers
are also positioned to take part as local command centers in the
event of a national emergency or implementation of “Continuity
of Government” plans to declare martial law. State and local
law enforcement agencies provide the majority of information to
the local Fusion Centers, which is then analyzed and disseminated
to the major intelligence, military or Homeland Security departments
and agencies. However, in recent years, Fusion Centers have been
criticized for their purported agenda, as they are justified on
the basis of acting as centers designated for “counter-terrorism”
purposes, but in practice are directed against citizen groups.

In the spring
of 2009, it was revealed that the Missouri Information Analysis
Center (MIAC) – a Fusion Center – had put out an information
pamphlet designed to help law enforcement officials identify “potential
domestic terrorists.” According to the report:

If you’re
an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia
supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member
of Congress, if you possess subversive literature, you very well
might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.

When did our
society become something out of 1984? When did our governments designate
“subversive literature” as a sign of terrorism? The report
classified such activities as being part of a “Modern Militia
Movement,” and further identified “potential threats to
American security” as:

People who
supported former third-party presidential candidates like Texas
Rep. Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr
are cited in the report, in addition to anti-abortion activists
and conspiracy theorists who believe the United States, Mexico
and Canada will someday form a North American Union.

In other words,
those who are opposed to the political and economic process of “North
American integration” are seen and identified as “potential
militia members.” The report even directly identified possession
of such films like the anti-Federal Reserve film, “America:
Freedom to Fascism” as “potential signals of militia involvement.”
The document put out by the Fusion Center further warned law enforcement
officials to be “on the lookout” for “bumper stickers
advertising third party candidates, or people with copies of the
United States Constitution.” The report wrote that due to the
economic crisis, “a lush environment for militia activity has
been created,” and:

It goes on
to cite possible militia members as people who talk about the
New World Order conspiracy, express anger with the Federal Reserve
banking system, resist paying taxes, warn other citizens about
the perceived dangers of radio frequency identification (RFID)
or lobby for a return to strict constitutionalism as possible
threats to law enforcement.

While the
memo does offer something of a lopsided summary of many of the
various groups which swelled enormously following the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it also links individuals who are otherwise
peaceful with the Ku Klux Klan and other violent organizations.

Another Fusion
Center in Virginia identified many universities as potential “radicalization
nodes” for terrorists, singling out “historically black
colleges” as potential threats, and “it also contains
an extensive list of peaceful American and International activist
groups from nearly all cross-sections of political engagement, placing
them side-by-side with groups that have long been known for resorting
to violence.”

In April of
2009, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) released a report
on the threat to liberties and civil rights posed by the Fusion
Centers, saying that, “Fusion centers have experienced a mission
creep in the last several years, becoming more of a threat than
a security device. With no overarching guidelines to restrict or
direct them, these centers put Americans’ privacy at huge risk.”
The ACLU report identified several “troubling incidents”
in regards to Fusion Centers violating privacy and civil rights:

• A May 7,
  2008 report entitled “Universal Adversary Dynamic Threat
  Assessment” authored by a private contractor that labeled
  environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, the Humane Society
  and the Audubon Society as “mainstream organizations with
  known or possible links to eco-terrorism”;
• A potential
  abuse of authority by DHS officials who improperly monitored and
  disseminated the communications of peace activists affiliated
  with the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN);
• A report
  produced on February 19, 2009 by the North Central Texas Fusion
  System entitled “Prevention Awareness Bulletin” which
  described a purported conspiracy between Muslim civil rights organizations,
  lobbying groups, the anti-war movement, the U.S. Treasury Department,
  hip hop bands and former Congresswoman and presidential candidate
  Cynthia McKinney to “provide an environment for terrorist
  organizations to flourish”;
• A “Strategic
  Report” produced February 20, 2009 by the Missouri Information
  Analysis Center that described a purported security threat posed
  by the “modern militia movement” but inappropriately
  included references to social, religious and political ideologies,
  including support of third party presidential candidates such
  as Congressman Ron Paul and former Congressman Bob Barr; and
• A “Protective
  Intelligence Bulletin” issued by the DHS Intelligence Branch
  of the Threat Management Division of the Federal Protective Service
  which improperly collected and disseminated information regarding
  political demonstrations and inappropriately labeled peaceful
  advocacy groups and other activists as “extremists.”

To those in
power, u201Cpeaceu201D is an u201Cextremistu201D idea, because u201Cwaru201D and u201Cviolenceu201D
are the norms to them. Now it has come to the point where those
who challenge the structures of power are simply designated as terrorists
and extremists. This is an incredibly dangerous political road at
which the end is despotism and the death of democracy. Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney, as one of those identified by Fusion Centers as
providing “an environment for terrorist organizations to flourish,”
had this to say about the Fusion Center report:

As a student
of COINTELPRO, the government’s infamous Counter-Intelligence
Program [directed against the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s],
I know what my government is capable of doing to quash dissent.
That’s why I voted against the Patriot Act, worked in Congress
to roll back the Secret Evidence Act, and introduced legislation
to repeal the Military Commissions Act. I come from a long legacy
of activists for justice and freedom inside this country. I am
on the advocacy front lines for peace abroad and justice at home.
But I know that we will not have peace or justice without truth.
Truth is the foundation of the dignity that we seek. Dignity for
all is not a threat to the United States.

It has become
evident that the response of the American government to the “global
political awakening” within the United States is aimed at demonizing,
discrediting, and oppressing activist groups and political movements.
But how far can this oppression go?

Detention
Camps for Dissidents?

One startling
and deeply concerning development in the area of “Homeland
Security” is the highly secretive and deliberately quiet establishment
of “detention centers” within the United States, designed
to house millions of people in the event of an “emergency.”
In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft “announced [a] desire
for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be ‘enemy combatants’,”
and that his plan “would allow him to order the indefinite
incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their
constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them
enemy combatants.”

Also in 2002,
it was reported that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(now under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security),
was “moving ahead with plans to create temporary cities that
could handle millions of Americans after mass destruction attacks
on U.S. cities.” Newsmax reported that, “FEMA was seeking
bids from three major real estate and/or engineering firms to help
prepare for the creation of the emergency cities, using tents and
trailers – if an urban area is attacked by NBC (nuclear, chemical
or biological) weapons.”

In 2006, Dick
Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, and its subsidiary company,
Kellogg-Brown & Root (KBR) received a major contract from the
Department of Homeland Security worth $385 million, which was given
“to support the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event
of an emergency.” A press release on KBR’s website stated
that:

The contract,
which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary
detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE
Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the
event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to
support the rapid development of new programs.

Further, it
stated that, “The contract may also provide migrant detention
support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an
immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react
to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event
of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing
housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in
support of relief efforts.”

Read
the rest of the article

July
13, 2010

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.

There is a
new and unique development in human history that is taking place
around the world; it is unprecedented in reach and volume, and it
is also the greatest threat to all global power structures: the
‘global political awakening.’ The term was coined by Zbigniew
Brzezinski, and refers to the fact that, as Brzezinski wrote:

For the first
time in history almost all of humanity is politically activated,
politically conscious and politically interactive. Global activism
is generating a surge in the quest for cultural respect and economic
opportunity in a world scarred by memories of colonial or imperial
domination.

It is, in essence,
this massive ‘global political awakening’ which presents
the gravest and greatest challenge to the organized powers of globalization
and the global political economy: nation-states, multinational corporations
and banks, central banks, international organizations, military,
intelligence, media and academic institutions. The Transnational
Capitalist Class (TCC), or ‘Superclass’ as David Rothkopf
refers to them, are globalized like never before. For the first
time in history, we have a truly global and heavily integrated elite.
As elites have globalized their power, seeking to construct a ‘new
world order’ of global governance and ultimately global government,
they have simultaneously globalized populations.

The ‘Technological
Revolution’ (or ‘Technetronic’ Revolution, as Brzezinski
termed it in 1970) involves two major geopolitical developments.
The first is that as technology advances, systems of mass communication
rapidly accelerate, and the world’s people are able to engage
in instant communication with one another and gain access to information
from around the world. In it, lies the potential – and ultimately
a central source – of a massive global political awakening.
Simultaneously, the Technological Revolution has allowed elites
to redirect and control society in ways never before imagined, ultimately
culminating in a global scientific dictatorship, as many have warned
of since the early decades of the 20th century. The potential for
controlling the masses has never been so great, as science unleashes
the power of genetics, biometrics, surveillance, and new forms of
modern eugenics; implemented by a scientific elite equipped with
systems of psycho-social control (the use of psychology in controlling
the masses).

What is
the “Global Political Awakening”?

To answer this
question, it is best to let Zbigniew Brzezinski speak for himself,
since it is his term. In 2009, Zbigniew Brzezinski published an
article based on a speech he delivered to the London-based Chatham
House in their academic journal, International Affairs. Chatham
House, formerly the Royal Institute of International Relations,
is the British counterpart to the US-based Council on Foreign Relations,
both of which were founded in 1921 as “Sister Institutes”
to coordinate Anglo-American foreign policy. His article, “Major
foreign policy challenges for the next US President,” aptly
analyzes the major geopolitical challenges for the Obama administration
in leading the global hegemonic state at this critical juncture.
Brzezinski refers to the ‘global political awakening’
as “a truly transformative event on the global scene,”
since:

For the first
time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated,
politically conscious and politically interactive. There are only
a few pockets of humanity left in the remotest corners of the
world that are not politically alert and engaged with the political
turmoil and stirrings that are so widespread today around the
world. The resulting global political activism is generating a
surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and
economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories
of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination.

Brzezinski
posits that the ‘global political awakening’ is one of
the most dramatic and significant developments in geopolitics that
has ever occurred, and it “is apparent in radically different
forms from Iraq to Indonesia, from Bolivia to Tibet.” As the
Economist explained, “Though America has focused on
its notion of what people want (democracy and the wealth created
by free trade and open markets), Brzezinski points in a different
direction: It’s about dignity.” Further, argues Brzezinski,
“The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge
inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening.”

In 2005, Brzezinski
wrote an essay for The American Interest entitled, “The Dilemma
of the Last Sovereign,” in which he explains the geopolitical
landscape that America and the world find themselves in. He wrote
that, “For most states, sovereignty now verges on being a legal
fiction,” and he critically assessed the foreign policy objectives
and rhetoric of the Bush administration. Brzezinski has been an
ardent critic of the “war on terror” and the rhetoric
inherent in it, namely that of the demonization of Islam and Muslim
people, which constitute one of the fastest growing populations
and the fastest growing religion in the world. Brzezinski fears
the compound negative affects this can have on American foreign
policy and the objectives and aspirations of global power. He writes:

America needs
to face squarely a centrally important new global reality: that
the world’s population is experiencing a political awakening unprecedented
in scope and intensity, with the result that the politics of populism
are transforming the politics of power. The need to respond to
that massive phenomenon poses to the uniquely sovereign America
an historic dilemma: What should be the central definition of
America’s global role?

Brzezinski
explains that formulating a foreign policy based off of one single
event – the September 11th terror attacks – has both legitimized
illegal measures (torture, suspension of habeas corpus, etc) and
has launched and pacified citizens to accepting the “global
war on terror,” a war without end. The rhetoric and emotions
central to this global foreign policy created a wave of patriotism
and feelings of redemption and revenge. Thus, Brzezinski explains:

There was
no need to be more precise as to who the terrorists actually were,
where they came from, or what historical motives, religious passions
or political grievances had focused their hatred on America. Terrorism
thus replaced Soviet nuclear weapons as the principal threat,
and terrorists (potentially omnipresent and generally identified
as Muslims) replaced communists as the ubiquitous menace.

Brzezinski
explains that this foreign policy, which has inflamed anti-Americanism
around the world, specifically in the Muslim world, which was the
principle target population of ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, has
in fact further inflamed the ‘global political awakening’.
Brzezinski writes that:

[T]he central
challenge of our time is posed not by global terrorism, but rather
by the intensifying turbulence caused by the phenomenon of global
political awakening. That awakening is socially massive and politically
radicalizing.

This ‘global
political awakening’, Brzezinski writes, while unique in its
global scope today, originates in the ideas and actions of the French
Revolution, which was central in “transforming modern politics
through the emergence of a socially powerful national consciousness.”
Brzezinski explains the evolution of the ‘awakening’:

During the
subsequent 216 years, political awakening has spread gradually
but inexorably like an ink blot. Europe of 1848, and more generally
the nationalist movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
reflected the new politics of populist passions and growing mass
commitment. In some places that combination embraced utopian Manichaeism
for which the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Fascist assumption
of power in Italy in 1922, and the Nazi seizure of the German
state in 1933 were the launch-pads. The political awakening also
swept China, precipitating several decades of civil conflict.
Anti-colonial sentiments galvanized India, where the tactic of
passive resistance effectively disarmed imperial domination, and
after World War II anti-colonial political stirrings elsewhere
ended the remaining European empires. In the western hemisphere,
Mexico experienced the first inklings of populist activism already
in the 1860s, leading eventually to the Mexican Revolution of
the early 20th century.

Ultimately,
what this implies is that – regardless of the final results
of past awakenings – what is central to the concept of a ‘political
awakening’ is the population – the people – taking
on a political and social consciousness and subsequently, partaking
in massive political and social action aimed at generating a major
shift and change, or revolution, in the political, social and economic
realms. Thus, no social transformation presents a greater or more
direct challenge to entrenched and centralized power structures
– whether they are political, social or economic in nature.
Brzezinski goes on to explain the evolution of the ‘global
political awakening’ in modern times:

It is no
overstatement to assert that now in the 21st century the population
of much of the developing world is politically stirring and in
many places seething with unrest. It is a population acutely conscious
of social injustice to an unprecedented degree, and often resentful
of its perceived lack of political dignity. The nearly universal
access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating
a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized
and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These
energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both
to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy,
on top of which America still perches.

Brzezinski
explains that several central areas of the ‘global political
awakening’, such as China, India, Egypt, Bolivia, the Muslims
in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia and increasingly
in Europe, as well as Indians in Latin America, “increasingly
are defining what they desire in reaction to what they perceive
to be the hostile impact on them of the outside world. In differing
ways and degrees of intensity they dislike the status quo, and many
of them are susceptible to being mobilized against the external
power that they both envy and perceive as self-interestedly preoccupied
with that status quo.” Brzezinski elaborates on the specific
group most affected by this awakening:

The youth
of the Third World are particularly restless and resentful. The
demographic revolution they embody is thus a political time-bomb,
as well. With the exception of Europe, Japan and America, the
rapidly expanding demographic bulge in the 25-year-old-and-under
age bracket is creating a huge mass of impatient young people.
Their minds have been stirred by sounds and images that emanate
from afar and which intensify their disaffection with what is
at hand. Their potential revolutionary spearhead is likely to
emerge from among the scores of millions of students concentrated
in the often intellectually dubious "tertiary level"
educational institutions of developing countries. Depending on
the definition of the tertiary educational level, there are currently
worldwide between 80 and 130 million "college" students.
Typically originating from the socially insecure lower middle
class and inflamed by a sense of social outrage, these millions
of students are revolutionaries-in-waiting, already semi-mobilized
in large congregations, connected by the Internet and pre-positioned
for a replay on a larger scale of what transpired years earlier
in Mexico City or in Tiananmen Square. Their physical energy and
emotional frustration is just waiting to be triggered by a cause,
or a faith, or a hatred.

Brzezinski
thus posits that to address this new global “challenge”
to entrenched powers, particularly nation-states that cannot sufficiently
address the increasingly non-pliant populations and populist demands,
what is required, is “increasingly supranational cooperation,
actively promoted by the United States.” In other words, Brzezinski
favours an increased and expanded ‘internationalization’,
not surprising considering he laid the intellectual foundations
of the Trilateral Commission. He explains that “Democracy per
se is not an enduring solution,” as it could be overtaken by
“radically resentful populism.” This is truly a new global
reality:

Politically
awakened mankind craves political dignity, which democracy can
enhance, but political dignity also encompasses ethnic or national
self-determination, religious self-definition, and human and social
rights, all in a world now acutely aware of economic, racial and
ethnic inequities. The quest for political dignity, especially
through national self-determination and social transformation,
is part of the pulse of self-assertion by the world’s underprivileged.

Thus, writes
Brzezinski, “An effective response can only come from a self-confident
America genuinely committed to a new vision of global solidarity.”
The idea is that to address the grievances caused by globalization
and global power structures, the world and America must expand and
institutionalize the process of globalization, not simply in the
economic sphere, but in the social and political as well. It is
a flawed logic, to say the least, that the answer to this problem
is to enhance and strengthen the systemic problems. One cannot put
out a fire by adding fuel.

Brzezinski
even wrote that, “Let it be said right away that supranationality
should not be confused with world government. Even if it were desirable,
mankind is not remotely ready for world government, and the American
people certainly do not want it.” Instead, Brzezinski argues,
America must be central in constructing a system of global governance,
“in shaping a world that is defined less by the fiction of
state sovereignty and more by the reality of expanding and politically
regulated interdependence.” In other words, not ‘global
government’ but ‘global governance’, which is simply
a rhetorical ploy, as ‘global governance’ – no matter
how overlapping, sporadic and desultory it presents itself, is in
fact a key step and necessary transition in the moves toward an
actual global government.

Thus, the rhetoric
and reality of a “global war on terror” in actuality further
inflames the ‘global political awakening’ as opposed to
challenging and addressing the issue. In 2007, Brzezinski told the
US Senate that the “War on terror” was a “mythical
historical narrative,” or in other words, a complete fiction.

Read
the rest of the article

July
12, 2010

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.

Understanding
the Nature of the Global Economic Crisis

The people
have been lulled into a false sense of safety under the rouse of
a perceived “economic recovery.” Unfortunately, what the
majority of people think does not make it so, especially when the
people making the key decisions think and act to the contrary. The
sovereign debt crises that have been unfolding in the past couple
years and more recently in Greece, are canaries in the coal mine
for the rest of Western “civilization.” The crisis threatens
to spread to Spain, Portugal and Ireland; like dominoes, one country
after another will collapse into a debt and currency crisis, all
the way to America.

In October
2008, the mainstream media and politicians of the Western world
were warning of an impending depression if actions were not taken
to quickly prevent this. The problem was that this crisis had been
a long-time coming, and what’s worse, is that the actions governments
took did not address any of the core, systemic issues and problems
with the global economy; they merely set out to save the banking
industry from collapse. To do this, governments around the world
implemented massive “stimulus” and “bailout”
packages, plunging their countries deeper into debt to save the
banks from themselves, while charging it to people of the world.

Then an uproar
of stock market speculation followed, as money was pumped into the
stocks, but not the real economy. This recovery has been nothing
but a complete and utter illusion, and within the next two years,
the illusion will likely come to a complete collapse.

The governments
gave the banks a blank check, charged it to the public, and now
it’s time to pay; through drastic tax increases, social spending
cuts, privatization of state industries and services, dismantling
of any protective tariffs and trade regulations, and raising interest
rates. The effect that this will have is to rapidly accelerate,
both in the speed and volume, the unemployment rate, globally. The
stock market would crash to record lows, where governments would
be forced to freeze them altogether.

When the crisis
is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been
liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global
economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry
and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a
few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources;
governments will have lost that right. The people of the western
world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated
the “global South” and in particular, Africa; they will
remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely
subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures
of our society.

This is where
we stand today, and is the road on which we travel.

The western
world has been plundered into poverty, a process long underway,
but with the unfolding of the crisis, will be rapidly accelerated.
As our societies collapse in on themselves, the governments will
protect the banks and multinationals. When the people go out into
the streets, as they invariably do and will, the government will
not come to their aid, but will come with police and military forces
to crush the protests and oppress the people. The social foundations
will collapse with the economy, and the state will clamp down to
prevent the people from constructing a new one.

The road to
recovery is far from here. When the crisis has come to an end, the
world we know will have changed dramatically. No one ever grows
up in the world they were born into; everything is always changing.
Now is no exception. The only difference is, that we are about to
go through the most rapid changes the world has seen thus far.

Assessing
the Illusion of Recovery

In August of
2009, I wrote an article, Entering
the Greatest Depression in History, in which I analyzed how
there is a deep systemic crisis in the Capitalist system in which
we have gone through merely one burst bubble thus far, the housing
bubble, but there remains a great many others.

There remains
as a significantly larger threat than the housing collapse, a commercial
real estate bubble. As the Deutsche Bank CEO said in May of 2009,
“It’s either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.”

Of even greater
significance is what has been termed the “bailout bubble”
in which governments have superficially inflated the economies through
massive debt-inducing bailout packages. As of July of 2009, the
government watchdog and investigator of the US bailout program stated
that the U.S. may have put itself at risk of up to $23.7 trillion
dollars.

[See: Andrew
Gavin Marshall, Entering the Greatest Depression in History. Global
Research: August 7, 2009]

In October
of 2009, approximately one year following the “great panic”
of 2008, I wrote an article titled, The
Economic Recovery is an Illusion, in which I analyzed what the
most prestigious and powerful financial institution in the world,
the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), had to say about the
crisis and “recovery.”

The BIS, as
well as its former chief economist, who had both correctly predicted
the crisis that unfolded in 2008, were warning of a future crisis
in the global economy, citing the fact that none of the key issues
and structural problems with the economy had been changed, and that
government bailouts may do more harm than good in the long run.

William White,
former Chief Economist of the BIS, warned:

The world has
not tackled the problems at the heart of the economic downturn and
is likely to slip back into recession. [He] warned that government
actions to help the economy in the short run may be sowing the seeds
for future crises.

[See: Andrew
Gavin Marshall, The Economic Recovery is an Illusion. Global Research:
October 3, 2009]

Crying Wolf
or Castigating Cassandra?

While people
were being lulled into a false sense of security, prominent voices
warning of the harsh bite of reality to come were, instead of being
listened to, berated and pushed aside by the mainstream media. Gerald
Celente, who accurately predicted the economic crisis of 2008 and
who had been warning of a much larger crisis to come, had been accused
by the mainstream media of pushing “pessimism porn.”[1]
Celente’s response has been that he isn’t pushing “pessimism
porn,” but that he refuses to push “optimism opium”
of which the mainstream media does so outstandingly.

So, are these
voices of criticism merely “crying wolf” or is it that
the media is out to “castigate Cassandra”? Cassandra,
in Greek mythology, was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba
of Troy, who was granted by the God Apollo the gift of prophecy.
She prophesied and warned the Trojans of the Trojan Horse, the death
of Agamemnon and the destruction of Troy. When she warned the Trojans,
they simply cast her aside as “mad” and did not heed her
warnings.

While those
who warn of a future economic crisis may not have been granted the
gift of prophecy from Apollo, they certainly have the ability of
comprehension.

So what do
the Cassandras of the world have to say today? Should we listen?

Empire and
Economics

To understand
the global economic crisis, we must understand the global causes
of the economic crisis. We must first determine how we got to the
initial crisis, from there, we can critically assess how governments
responded to the outbreak of the crisis, and thus, we can determine
where we currently stand, and where we are likely headed.

Africa and
much of the developing world was released from the socio-political-economic
restraints of the European empires throughout the 1950s and into
the 60s. Africans began to try to take their nations into their
own hands. At the end of World War II, the United States was the
greatest power in the world. It had command of the United Nations,
the World Bank and the IMF, as well as setting up the NATO military
alliance. The US dollar reigned supreme, and its value was tied
to gold.

In 1954, Western
European elites worked together to form an international think tank
called the Bilderberg Group, which would seek to link the political
economies of Western Europe and North America. Every year, roughly
130 of the most powerful people in academia, media, military, industry,
banking, and politics would meet to debate and discuss key issues
related to the expansion of Western hegemony over the world and
the re-shaping of world order. They undertook, as one of their key
agendas, the formation of the European Union and the Euro currency
unit.

[See: Andrew
Gavin Marshall, Controlling the Global Economy: Bilderberg, the
Trilateral Commission and the Federal Reserve. Global Research:
August 3, 2009]

In 1971, Nixon
abandoned the dollar’s link to gold, which meant that the dollar
no longer had a fixed exchange rate, but would change according
to the whims and choices of the Federal Reserve (the central bank
of the United States). One key individual that was responsible for
this choice was the third highest official in the U.S. Treasury
Department at the time, Paul Volcker.[2]

Volcker got
his start as a staff economist at the New York Federal Reserve Bank
in the early 50s. After five years there, “David Rockefeller’s
Chase Bank lured him away.”[3] So in 1957, Volcker went to
work at Chase, where Rockefeller “recruited him as his special
assistant on a congressional commission on money and credit in America
and for help, later, on an advisory commission to the Treasury Department.”[4]
In the early 60s, Volcker went to work in the Treasury Department,
and returned to Chase in 1965 “as an aide to Rockefeller, this
time as vice president dealing with international business.”
With Nixon entering the White House, Volcker got the third highest
job in the Treasury Department. This put him at the center of the
decision making process behind the dissolution of the Bretton Woods
agreement by abandoning the dollar’s link to gold in 1971.[5]

In 1973, David
Rockefeller, the then-Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and President
of the Council on Foreign Relations, created the Trilateral Commission,
which sought to expand upon the Bilderberg Group. It was an international
think tank, which would include elites from Western Europe, North
America, and Japan, and was to align a “trilateral” political
economic partnership between these regions. It was to further the
interests and hegemony of the Western controlled world order.

That same year,
the Petri-dish experiment of neoliberalism was undertaken in Chile.
While a leftist government was coming to power in Chile, threatening
the economic interests of not only David Rockefeller’s bank,
but a number of American corporations, David Rockefeller set up
meetings between Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s National Security
Adviser, and a number of leading corporate industrialists. Kissinger
in turn, set up meetings between these individuals and the CIA chief
and Nixon himself. Within a short while, the CIA had begun an operation
to topple the government of Chile.

On September
11, 1973, a Chilean General, with the help of the CIA, overthrew
the government of Chile and installed a military dictatorship that
killed thousands. The day following the coup, a plan for an economic
restructuring of Chile was on the president’s desk. The economic
advisers from the University of Chicago, where the ideas of Milton
Freidman poured out, designed the restructuring of Chile along neoliberal
lines.

Neoliberalism
was thus born in violence.

In 1973, a
global oil crisis hit the world. This was the result of the Yom
Kippur War, which took place in the Middle East in 1973. However,
much more covertly, it was an American strategem. Right when the
US dropped the dollar’s peg to gold, the State Department had
quietly begun pressuring Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations to
increase the price of oil. At the 1973 Bilderberg meeting, held
six months before the oil price rises, a 400% increase in the price
of oil was discussed. The discussion was over what to do with the
large influx of what would come to be called “petrodollars,”
the oil revenues of the OPEC nations.

Henry Kissinger
worked behind the scenes in 1973 to ensure a war would take place
in the Middle East, which happened in October. Then, the OPEC nations
drastically increased the price of oil. Many newly industrializing
nations of the developing world, free from the shackles of overt
political and economic imperialism, suddenly faced a problem: oil
is the lifeblood of an industrial society and it is imperative in
the process of development and industrialization. If they were to
continue to develop and industrialize, they would need the money
to afford to do so.

Concurrently,
the oil producing nations of the world were awash with petrodollars,
bringing in record surpluses. However, to make a profit, the money
would need to be invested. This is where the Western banking system
came to the scene. With the loss of the dollar’s link to cold,
the US currency could flow around the world at a much faster rate.
The price of oil was tied to the price of the US dollar, and so
oil was traded in US dollars. OPEC nations thus invested their oil
money into Western banks, which in turn, would “recycle”
that money by loaning it to the developing nations of the world
in need of financing industrialization. It seemed like a win-win
situation: the oil nations make money, invest it in the West, which
loans it to the South, to be able to develop and build “western”
societies.

However, all
things do not end as fairy tales, especially when those in power
are threatened. An industrialized and developed “Global South”
(Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia) would not be a good thing
for the established Western elites. If they wanted to maintain their
hegemony over the world, they must prevent the rise of potential
rivals, especially in regions so rich in natural resources and the
global supplies of energy.

It was at this
time that the United States initiated talks with China. The “opening”
of China was to be a Western project of expanding Western capital
into China. China will be allowed to rise only so much as the West
allows it. The Chinese elite were happy to oblige with the prospect
of their own growth in political and economic power. India and Brazil
also followed suit, but to a smaller degree than that of China.
China and India were to brought within the framework of the Trilateral
partnership, and in time, both China and India would have officials
attending meetings of the Trilateral Commission.

So money flowed
around the world, primarily in the form of the US dollar. Foreign
central banks would buy US Treasuries (debts) as an investment,
which would also show faith in the strength of the US dollar and
economy. The hegemony of the US dollar reached around the world.

[See: Andrew
Gavin Marshall, Controlling the Global Economy: Bilderberg, the
Trilateral Commission and the Federal Reserve. Global Research:
August 3, 2009]

The Hegemony
of Neoliberalism

In 1977, however,
a new US administration came to power under the Presidency of Jimmy
Carter, who was himself a member of the Trilateral Commission. With
his administration, came another roughly two-dozen members of the
Trilateral Commission to fill key positions within his government.
In 1973, Paul Volcker, the rising star through Chase Manhattan and
the Treasury Department became a member of the Trilateral Commission.
In 1975, he was made President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York, the most powerful of the 12 regional Fed banks. In 1979, Jimmy
Carter gave the job of Treasury Secretary to the former Governor
of the Federal Reserve System, and in turn, David Rockefeller recommended
Jimmy Carter appoint Paul Volcker as Governor of the Federal Reserve
Board, which Carter quickly did.[6]

In 1979, the
price of oil skyrocketed again. This time, Paul Volcker at the Fed
was to take a different approach. His response was to drastically
increase interest rates. Interest rates went from 2% in the late
70s to 18% in the early 1980s. The effect this had was that the
US economy went into recession, and greatly reduced its imports
from developing nations. A the same time, developing nations, who
had taken on heavy debt burdens to finance industrialization, suddenly
found themselves having to pay 18% interest payments on their loans.
The idea that they could borrow heavily to build an industrial society,
which would in turn pay off their loans, had suddenly come to a
halt. As the US dollar had spread around the world in the forms
of petrodollars and loans, the decisions that the Fed made would
affect the entire world. In 1982, Mexico announced that it could
no longer service its debt, and defaulted on its loans. This marked
the spread of the 1980s debt crisis, which spread throughout Latin
America and across the continent of Africa.

Suddenly, much
of the developing world was plunged into crisis. Thus, the IMF and
World Bank entered the scene with their newly developed “Structural
Adjustment Programs” (SAPs), which would encompass a country
in need signing an agreement, the SAP, which would provide the country
with a loan from the IMF, as well as “development” projects
by the World Bank. In turn, the country would have to undergo a
neoliberal restructuring of its country.

Neoliberalism
spread out of America and Britain in the 1980s; through their financial
empires and instruments – including the World Bank and IMF
– they spread the neoliberal ideology around the globe. Countries
that resisted neoliberalism were subjected to “regime change.”
This would occur through financial manipulation, via currency speculation
or the hegemonic monetary policies of the Western nations, primarily
the United States; economic sanctions, via the United Nations or
simply done on a bilateral basis; covert regime change, through
“colour revolutions” or coups, assassinations; and sometimes
overt military campaigns and war.

The neoliberal
ideology consisted in what has often been termed “free market
fundamentalism.” This would entail a massive wave of privatization,
in which state assets and industries are privatized in order to
become economically “more productive and efficient.” This
would have the social effect of leading to the firing of entire
areas of the public sector, especially health and education as well
as any specially protected national industries, which for many poor
nations meant vital natural resources.

Then, the market
would be “liberalized” which meant that restrictions and
impediments to foreign investments in the nation would diminish
by reducing or eliminating trade barriers and tariffs (taxes), and
thus foreign capital (Western corporations and banks) would be able
to invest in the country easily, while national industries that
grow and “compete” would be able to more easily invest
in other nations and industries around the world. The Central Bank
of the nation would then keep interest rates artificially low, to
allow for the easier movement of money in and out of the country.
The effect of this would be that foreign multinational corporations
and international banks would be able to easily buy up the privatized
industries, and thus, buy up the national economy. Simultaneously
major national industries may be allowed to grow and work with the
global banks and corporations. This would essentially oligopolize
the national economy, and bring it within the sphere of influence
of the “global economy” controlled by and for the Western
elites.

The European
empires had imposed upon Africa and many other colonized peoples
around the world a system of “indirect rule,” in which
local governance structures were restructured and reorganized into
a system where the local population is governed by locals, but for
the western colonial powers. Thus, a local elite is created, and
they enrich themselves through the colonial system, so they have
no interest in challenging the colonial powers, but instead seek
to protect their own interests, which happen to be the interests
of the empire.

In the era
of globalization, the leaders of the “Third World” have
been co-opted and their societies reorganized by and for the interests
of the globalized elites. This is a system of indirect rule, and
the local elites becoming “indirect globalists”; they
have been brought within the global system and structures of empire.

Following a
Structural Adjustment Program, masses of people would be left unemployed;
the prices of essential commodities such as food and fuel would
increase, sometimes by hundreds of percentiles, while the currency
lost its value. Poverty would spread and entire sectors of the economy
would be shut down. In the “developing” world of Asia,
Latin America and Africa, these policies were especially damaging.
With no social safety nets to fall into, the people would go hungry;
the public state was dismantled.

When it came
to Africa, the continent so rapidly de-industrialized throughout
the 1980s and into the 1990s that poverty increased by incredible
degrees. With that, conflict would spread. In the 1990s, as the
harsh effects of neoliberal policies were easily and quickly seen
on the African continent, the main notion pushed through academia,
the media, and policy circles was that the state of Africa was due
to the “mismanagement” by Africans. The blame was put
solely on the national governments. While national political and
economic elites did become complicit in the problems, the problems
were imposed from beyond the continent, not from within.

Thus, in the
1990s, the notion of “good governance” became prominent.
This was the idea that in return for loans and “help”
from the IMF and World Bank, nations would need to undertake reforms
not only of the economic sector, but also to create the conditions
of what the west perceived as “good governance.” However,
in neoliberal parlance, “good governance” implies “minimal
governance,” and governments still had to dismantle their public
sectors. They simply had to begin applying the illusion of democracy,
through the holding of elections and allowing for the formation
of a civil society. “Freedom” however, was still to maintain
simply an economic concept, in that the nation would be “free”
for Western capital to enter into.

While massive
poverty and violence spread across the continent, people were given
the “gift” of elections. They would elect one leader,
who would then be locked into an already pre-determined economic
and political structure. The political leaders would enrich themselves
at the expense of others, and then be thrown out at the next election,
or simply fix the elections. This would continue, back and forth,
all the while no real change would be allowed to take place. Western
imposed “democracy” had thus failed.

An article
in a 2002 edition of International Affairs, the journal of
the Royal Institute of International Affairs (the British counter-part
to the Council on Foreign Relations), wrote that:

In 1960 the
average income of the top 20 per cent of the world’s population
was 30 times that of the bottom 20 per cent. By 1990 it was 60
times, ad by 1997, 74 times that of the lowest fifth. Today the
assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined
GNP [Gross National Product] of all least developed countries
and their 600 million people.

This has
been the context in which there has been an explosive growth in
the presence of Western as well as local non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) in Africa. NGOs today form a prominent part of the “development
machine,” a vast institutional and disciplinary nexus of
official agencies, practitioners, consultants, scholars and other
miscellaneous experts producing and consuming knowledge about
the “developing world.”

[. . . ]
Aid (in which NGOs have come to play a significant role) is frequently
portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables
wealth to flow from rich to poor, poverty to be reduced and the
poor to be empowered.[7]

The authors
then explained that NGOs have a peculiar evolution in Africa:

[T[heir role
in “development” represents a continuity of the work
of their precursors, the missionaries and voluntary organizations
that cooperated in Europe’s colonization and control of Africa.
Today their work contributes marginally to the relief of poverty,
but significantly to undermining the struggle of African people
to emancipate themselves from economic, social and political oppression.[8]

The authors
examined how with the spread of neoliberalism, the notion of a “minimalist
state” spread across the world and across Africa. Thus, they
explain, the IMF and World Bank “became the new commanders
of post-colonial economies.” However, these efforts were not
imposed without resistance, as, “Between 1976 and 1992 there
were 146 protests against IMF-supported austerity measures [SAPs]
in 39 countries around the world.” Usually, however, governments
responded with brute force, violently oppressing demonstrations.
However, the widespread opposition to these “reforms”
needed to be addressed by major organizations and “aid”
agencies in re-evaluating their approach to “development”:[9]

The outcome
of these deliberations was the “good governance” agenda
in the 1990s and the decision to co-opt NGOs and other civil society
organizations to a repackaged programme of welfare provision,
a social initiative that could be more accurately described as
a programme of social control.

The result
was to implement the notion of “pluralism” in the form
of “multipartyism,” which only ended up in bringing “into
the public domain the seething divisions between sections of the
ruling class competing for control of the state.” As for the
“welfare initiatives,” the bilateral and multilateral
aid agencies set aside significant funds for addressing the “social
dimensions of adjustment,” which would “minimize the more
glaring inequalities that their policies perpetuated.” This
is where the growth of NGOs in Africa rapidly accelerated.[10]

Africa had
again, become firmly enraptured in the cold grip of imperialism.
Conflicts in Africa would be stirred up by imperial foreign powers,
often using ethnic divides to turn the people against each other,
using the political leaders of African nations as vassals submissive
to Western hegemony. War and conflict would spread, and with it,
so too would Western capital and the multinational corporation.

Building
a “New” Economy

While the developing
world fell under the heavy sword of Western neoliberal hegemony,
the Western industrialized societies experienced a rapid growth
of their own economic strength. It was the Western banks and multinational
corporations that spread into and took control of the economies
of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and with the fall of the Soviet
Union in 1991, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Russia opened
itself up to Western finance, and the IMF and World Bank swept in
and imposed neoliberal restructuring, which led to a collapse of
the Russian economy, and enrichment of a few billionaire oligarchs
who own the Russian economy, and who are intricately connected with
Western economic interests; again, “indirect globalists.”

As the Western
financial and commercial sectors took control of the vast majority
of the world’s resources and productive industries, amassing
incredible profits, they needed new avenues in which to invest.
Out of this need for a new road to capital accumulation (making
money), the US Federal Reserve stepped in to help out.

The Federal
Reserve in the 1990s began to ease interest rates lower and lower
to again allow for the easier spread of money. This was the era
of “globalization,” where proclamations of a “New
World Order” emerged. Regional trading blocs and “free
trade” agreements spread rapidly, as world systems of political
and economic structure increasingly grew out of the national structure
and into a supra-national form. The North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) was implemented in an “economic constitution for North
America” as Reagan referred to it.

Regionalism
had emerged as the next major phase in the construction of the New
World Order, with the European Union being at the forefront. The
world economy was “globalized” and so too, would the political
structure follow, on both regional and global levels. The World
Trade Organization (WTO) was formed to maintain and enshrine global
neoliberal constitution for trade. All through this time, a truly
global ruling class emerged, the Transnational Capitalist Class
(TCC), or global elite, which constituted a singular international
class.

However, as
the wealth and power of elites grew, everyone else suffered. The
middle class had been subjected to a quiet dismantling. In the Western
developed nations, industries and factories closed down, relocating
to cheap Third World countries to exploit their labour, then sell
the products in the Western world cheaply. Our living standards
in the West began to fall, but because we could buy products for
cheaper, no one seemed to complain. We continued to consume, and
we used credit and debt to do so. The middle class existed only
in theory, but was in fact, beholden to the shackles of debt.

The Clinton
administration used “globalization” as its grand strategy
throughout the 1990s, facilitating the decline of productive capital
(as in, money that flows into production of goods and services),
and implemented the rise finance capital (money made on money).
Thus, financial speculation became one of the key tools of economic
expansion. This is what was termed the “financialization”
of the economy. To allow this to occur, the Clinton administration
actively worked to deregulate the banking sector. The Glass-Steagle
Act, put in place by FDR in 1933 to prevent commercial banks from
merging with investment banks and engaging in speculation, (which
in large part caused the Great Depression), was slowly dismantled
through the coordinated efforts of America’s largest banks,
the Federal Reserve, and the US Treasury Department.

Thus, a massive
wave of consolidation took place, as large banks ate smaller banks,
corporations merged, where banks and corporations stopped being
American or European and became truly global. Some of the key individuals
that took part in the dismantling of Glass-Steagle and the expansion
of “financialization” were Alan Greenspan at the Federal
Reserve and Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers at the Treasury Department,
now key officials in Obama’s economic team.

This era saw
the rise of “derivatives” which are “complex financial
instruments” that essentially act as short-term insurance policies,
betting and speculating that an asset price or commodity would go
up or go down in value, allowing money to be made on whether stocks
or prices go up or down. However, it wasn’t called “insurance”
because “insurance” has to be regulated. Thus, it was
referred to as derivatives trade, and organizations called Hedge
Funds entered the picture in managing the global trade in derivatives.

The stock market
would go up as speculation on future profits drove stocks higher
and higher, inflating a massive bubble in what was termed a “virtual
economy.” The Federal Reserve facilitated this, as it had previously
done in the lead-up to the Great Depression, by keeping interest
rates artificially low, and allowing for easy-flowing money into
the financial sector. The Federal Reserve thus inflated the “dot-com”
bubble of the technology sector. When this bubble burst, the Federal
Reserve, with Allen Greenspan at the helm, created the “housing
bubble.”

The Federal
Reserve maintained low interest rates and actively encouraged and
facilitated the flow of money into the housing sector. Banks were
given free reign and actually encouraged to make loans to high-risk
individuals who would never be able to pay back their debt. Again,
the middle class existed only in the myth of the “free market.”

Concurrently,
throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the role of

speculation
as a financial instrument of war became apparent. Within the neoliberal
global economy, money could flow easily into and out of countries.
Thus, when confidence weakens in the prospect of one nation’s
economy, there can be a case of “capital flight” where
foreign investors sell their assets in that nation’s currency
and remove their capital from that country. This results in an inevitable
collapse of the nations economy.

This happened
to Mexico in 1994, in the midst of joining NAFTA, where international
investors speculated against the Mexican peso, betting that it would
collapse; they cashed in their pesos for dollars, which devalued
the peso and collapsed the Mexican economy. This was followed by
the East Asian financial crisis in 1997, where throughout the 1990s,
Western capital had penetrated East Asian economies speculating
in real estate and the stock markets. However, this resulted in
over-investment, as the real economy, (production, manufacturing,
etc.) could not keep up with speculative capital. Thus, Western
capital feared a crisis, and began speculating against the national
currencies of East Asian economies, which triggered devaluation
and a financial panic as capital fled from East Asia into Western
banking sectors. The economies collapsed and then the IMF came in
to “restructure” them accordingly. The same strategy was
undertaken with Russia in 1998, and Argentina in 2001.

[See: Andrew
Gavin Marshall, Forging a “New World Order” Under a One
World Government. Global Research: August 13, 2009]

Throughout
the 2000s, the housing bubble was inflated beyond measure, and around
the middle of the decade, when the indicators emerged of a crisis
in the housing market a commercial real estate bubble was formed.
This bubble has yet to burst.

Read
the rest of the article

February
23, 2010

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.

Introduction

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I have analyzed US and NATO geopolitical strategy since the fall of the Soviet Union, in expanding the American empire and preventing the rise of new powers, containing Russia and China. This Part examines the implications of this strategy in recent years; following the emergence of a New Cold War, as well as analyzing the war in Georgia, the attempts and methods of regime change in Iran, the coup in Honduras, the expansion of the Afghan-Pakistan war theatre, and spread of conflict in Central Africa. These processes of a New Cold War and major regional wars and conflicts take the world closer to a New World War. Peace can only be possible if the tools and engines of empires are dismantled.

Eastern Europe: Forefront of the New Cold War

In 2002, the Guardian reported that, u201CThe US military build-up in the former Soviet republics of central Asia is raising fears in Moscow that Washington is exploiting the Afghan war to establish a permanent, armed foothold in the region.u201D Further, u201CThe swift construction of US military bases is also likely to ring alarm bells in Beijing.u201D[1]

In 2004, it was reported that US strategy u201Cis to position U.S. forces along an “arc of instability” that runs through the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and southern Asia. It is in these parts of the world – generally poor, insular and unstable – that military planners see the major future threats to U.S. interests.u201D[2]

In 2005, it was reported that talks had been going on between the US and Poland since 2002, along with various other countries, u201Cover the possibility of setting up a European base to intercept long-range missiles.u201D It was further reported that, u201Csuch a base would not have been conceivable before Poland joined Nato in 1999.u201D[3]

In November of 2007 it was reported that, u201CRussia threatened to site short-range nuclear missiles in a second location on the European Union’s border yesterday if the United States refuses to abandon plans to erect a missile defence shield.u201D A senior Russian u201Carmy general said that Iskander missiles could be deployed in Belarus if US proposals to place 10 interceptor missiles and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic go ahead.u201D Putin u201Calso threatened to retrain Russia’s nuclear arsenal on targets within Europe.u201D However, u201CWashington claims that the shield is aimed not at Russia but at states such as Iran which it accuses of seeking to develop nuclear weapons that could one day strike the West.u201D[4]

This is a patently absurd claim, as in May 2009, Russian and American scientists released a report saying u201Cthat it would take Iran at least another six to eight years to produce a missile with enough range to reach Southern Europe and that only illicit foreign assistance or a concerted and highly visible, decade-long effort might produce the breakthroughs needed for a nuclear-tipped missile to threaten the United States.u201D[5] Even in December of 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released by all 16 US intelligence agencies reported that, u201CIran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen.u201D[6]

Russia has concerns not only about missile interceptors in Poland, which it claims are aimed at Russia, but is also concerned about u201Can advanced missile-tracking radar that the Pentagon wants to place in the Czech Republic.u201D[7] Further, in 2007, the Guardian reported that, u201CRussia is preparing its own military response to the US’s controversial plans to build a new missile defence system in eastern Europe, according to Kremlin officials, in a move likely to increase fears of a cold war-style arms race.u201D A Kremlin spokesman said of the Polish missile defenses and the Czech radar system, that, u201CWe were extremely concerned and disappointed. We were never informed in advance about these plans. It brings tremendous change to the strategic balance in Europe, and to the world’s strategic stability.u201D[8]

In May of 2008, it was reported that, u201CPresident Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and President Hu Jintao of China met … to conclude a deal on nuclear cooperation and together condemn American proposals for a missile shield in Europe. Both countries called the plan a setback to international trust that was likely to upset the balance of power.u201D[9]

In July of 2008, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it u201Cwill be forced to make a military response if the U.S.-Czech missile defense agreement is ratified,u201D and that, u201Cwe will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods.u201D[10] In August of 2008, the US and Poland reached a deal u201Cto place an American missile defense base on Polish territory.u201D Russia responded by u201Csaying that the move would worsen relations with the United States.u201D[11] Russia further said u201Cthe US had shown that Russia was the true target of the defensive shield, as tension between the two powers continued to rise over the conflict in Georgia.u201D The Deputy Head of Russia's general staff u201Cwarned that Poland was making itself a target for Russia’s military.u201D[12]

It was further reported that, u201CGeneral Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that any new US assets in Europe could come under Russian nuclear attack with his forces targeting u2018the allies of countries having nuclear weapons',u201D and that, u201CSuch targets are destroyed as a first priority.u201D[13]

In April of 2009, Obama said, u201Cthat the U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland will go forward.u201D[14] In May of 2009, Russia said that it u201Ccould deploy its latest Iskander missiles close to Poland if plans to install U.S. Patriots on Polish soil go ahead.u201D[15] In July of 2009, Russian President Medvedev said that, u201CRussia will still deploy missiles near Poland if the US pushes ahead with a missile shield in Eastern Europe.u201D[16]

Iran and the China-Russia Alliance

The Bush regime used hostile rhetoric against Iran, threatening possible war against the country. However, Iran will not be in any way similar to the military adventurism seen in Iraq. A war against Iran will bring China and Russia to war with the west. Chinese and Russian investments with Iran, both in terms of military cooperation as well as nuclear proliferation and energy ties, have driven the interests of Iran together with those of China and Russia.

In 2007, both Russia and China warned against any attack on Iran by the west.[17] From 2004 onwards, China became Iran's top oil export market, and Iran is China's third largest supplier of oil, following Angola and Saudi Arabia. China and Iran signed a gas deal in 2008 worth 100 billion dollars. Further, u201CBeijing is helping Tehran to build dams, shipyards and many other projects. More than 100 Chinese state companies are operating in Iran to develop ports and airports in the major Iranian cities, mine-development projects and oil and gas infrastructures.u201D Also, u201CChina, Iran and Russia maintain identical foreign policy positions regarding Taiwan and Chechnya,u201D[18] which only further strengthens their alliance.

In August of 2008, a senior Iranian defense official warned that any attack against Iran would trigger a world war.[19] In February of 2009, Iran and Russia announced that, u201CIran and Russia are to boost military cooperation.u201D[20] Russia has also been selling arms and advanced weapons systems to both Iran and Venezuela.[21] In 2008, OPEC warned against an attack on Iran, saying that, u201Coil prices would see an u2018unlimited' increase in the case of a military conflict involving Iran, because the group’s members would be unable to make up the lost production.u201D[22]

In 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was founded as a mutual security organization between the nations of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its main focus is on Central Asian security matters, such as u201Cterrorism, separatism and extremism.u201D Nations with Observer status in the SCO are India, Mongolia, Pakistan and Iran. The SCO also emphasizes economic ties between the nations, and serves as a counter to American hegemony in Central Asia.[23]

In October of 2007, the SCO, headed by China, signed an agreement with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), headed by Russia, in an effort to bolster and strengthen links in defense and security between the two major nations.[24] The CSTO was formed in 2002 between Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. In 2007, it was suggested that Iran could join the CSTO.[25] In April of 2009, it was reported that the CSTO is building up its cooperation with Iran, acting as a counterweight to NATO.[26] In February of 2009, following a summit, the CSTO had u201Cproduced an agreement to set up a joint rapid-reaction force intended to respond to the u2018broadest range of threats and challenges'.u201D[27] The rapid-reaction force u201Cwill comprise large military units from five countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,u201D and is seen as a force to rival NATO.[28]

In April of 2009, Russia and China u201Cannounced plans for an intensified programme of military cooperation yesterday as part of a burgeoning u2018strategic partnership',u201D and that, u201CAs many as 25 joint manoeuvres will be staged this year in a demonstration of strengthening ties between Moscow and Beijing.u201D Further, u201CRussia and China staged their first joint war games in 2005 after resolving outstanding border disputes between them. However, Moscow views Beijing as a lucrative market for defence exports and has sold billions of dollars of weaponry to China since the collapse of the Soviet Union ended their Communist rivalry.u201D Important to note is that, u201CBoth states have a keen interest in keeping the United States and Europe out of Central Asia as competition intensifies for access to the region's enormous oil and gas reserves.u201D[29]

In June of 2009, u201CChina and Russia signed a series of new agreements to broaden their collaborations in trade, investment and mining, including the framework on $700 million loan between Export-Import Bank of China and Russian Bank of Foreign Trade.u201D Of great importance, u201CMemorandums on bilateral gas and coal cooperation are likely to lead the two countries’ energy links to cover all the main sectors, from coal, oil, electricity, gas to nuclear power.u201D The leaders of both nations said that they u201Choped the two countries will also increase their joint projects in science and technology, agriculture, telecommunications and border trade.u201D[30]

In April of 2009, China and Russia signed a major oil pipeline deal to supply China with Russian oil.[31] In July of 2009, China and Russia underwent a week-long war game exercise of land and air forces, u201Cdesigned to counter a hypothetical threat from Islamist extremists or ethnic separatists that both countries insist look increasingly realistic.u201D In particular, u201Cboth are driven by a growing sense of urgency stemming from what they see as a deteriorating security picture in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.u201D[32]

The Georgian War: Spreading Conflict in the Caucasus

After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia's northern province of South Ossetia declared independence but failed to be internationally recognized. South Ossetia as well as Georgia's other largely autonomous province, Abkhazia, had traditionally been allied with Russia. There had been long-standing tensions between South Ossetia and Georgia and a shaky ceasefire.

On August 1, 2008, six people were killed in South Ossetia when fighting broke out between Georgian and South Ossetian forces. Both sides blamed each other for opening fire first, with Russian peacekeepers blaming Georgia and the Georgians blaming Russian peacekeepers.[33]

On August 5, Russia announced that it would u201Cdefend its citizens living in the conflict zoneu201D if a conflict were to erupt in Georgia, and the South Ossetian President said Georgia was u201Cattempting to spark a full-scale war.u201D Further, South Ossetian children were being evacuated out of the conflict zone, an act that was u201Ccondemnedu201D by Georgia, saying that the separatists were u201Cusing their youngsters as political propaganda.u201D[34]

On August 7, a ceasefire was announced between Georgia and South Ossetia, with Russia acting as a mediator between the two. On the night of August 7, five hours after the declared ceasefire, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili began a military operation against the capital city of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali.[35] The Georgian attack targeted hospitals, the university and left the city without food, water, electricity and gas.[36]

Georgian forces surrounded the city and their troops and tanks continued to assault the civilian targets. On the 8th of August, Russia called for an end to the military offensive. Reportedly, 2,000 civilians were killed by this point in South Ossetia, so Russia sent troops into the area. Russian Prime Minister Putin referred to Georgian actions as u201Cgenocideu201D and Russia also reportedly bombed a Georgian town. Immediately, the US called for u201Can end to the Russian bombings.u201D The Georgian President called it an u201Cunprovoked brutal Russian invasion.u201D Much of Tskhinvali was left in ruins after the Georgian offensive, with 34,000 South Ossetian refugees in Russia.[37]

Georgia, which had 2,000 troops deployed in Iraq, announced on August 9th that they would be pulling 1,000 troops out of Iraq to be deployed into South Ossetia, with the US providing the transportation for Georgian troops to get back to Georgia.[38] However, the Russian advance pushed the Georgian troops back, recapturing the city and damaging much of Georgia's military infrastructure. The Russian troops also entered the other breakaway province of Abkhazia and even occupied the Georgian city of Gori.

On August 12, the Russians announced an end to their military operations in Georgia and on August 13th, the last remaining Georgian troops pulled out of South Ossetia.

However, there is much more to this story than simply a conflict between a small Central Asian nation and Russia. It is important to remember the role played by American NGOs in putting the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili into power through the Rose Revolution in 2003 [See: Colour-Coded Revolutions and the Origins of World War III]. The US then developed closer ties with Georgia. Even before the Rose Revolution, in 2002, US military advisers were in Georgia in an effort to open up a u201Cnew frontu201D in the war on terror, with Americans there to u201Ctrain the Georgian army in how to counter militant activity.u201D[39] Also in 2002, hundreds of US Green Berets and 200 Special Forces arrived in Georgia to train Georgian forces u201Cfor anti-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations.u201D[40] Russia warned against US involvement in Georgia, saying that it could u201Ccomplicateu201D the situation.[41]

US and Georgian troops even conducted war games and military exercises together. In July of 2008, it was reported that 1,000 US troops in Georgia began a military training exercise with Georgian troops called u201CImmediate Response 2008.u201D The same report stated that u201CGeorgia and the Pentagon [cooperated] closely.u201D The training exercise came amidst growing tensions between Russia and Georgia, while the US was simultaneously supporting Georgia's bid to become a NATO member.[42]

Further, 1,200 US servicemen and 800 Georgians were to train for three weeks at a military base near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.[43] The exercise was being run in cooperation with NATO and was preceded by a visit to Georgia by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, where she met with the President and stated that, u201Cthe future of Georgia is in NATO.u201D[44]

However, these exercises and increased military cooperation between the US and Georgia did not go unnoticed by Russia, which simultaneously began military exercises on the other side of the Caucasus mountains, involving up to 8,000 Russian servicemen.[45] Clearly, Russia itself was aware of the potential for a military conflict in the region.

When the conflict with Russia began, there were US military instructors in Georgia,[46] and Russia's envoy to NATO also accused NATO of encouraging Georgia to take the offensive against South Ossetia.[47]

The US was not the only western nation to aid Georgia, as the unofficial NATO member, Israel, also played a part in arming Georgia. The Georgian tanks and artillery that captured the South Ossetian capital were aided by Israeli military advisers. Further, for up to a year leading up to the conflict, the Georgian President had commissioned upwards of 1,000 military advisers from private Israeli security firms to train the Georgian armed forces, as well as offer instruction on military intelligence and security. Georgia also purchased military equipment from Israel.[48]

The War in Georgia was designed to escalate tensions between NATO and Russia, using the region as a means to create a wider conflict. However, Russia's decision to end the combat operations quickly worked to its benefit and had the effect of diminishing the international tensions. The issue of NATO membership for Georgia is very important, because had it been a NATO member, the Russian attack on Georgia would have been viewed as an attack on all NATO members. The war in Afghanistan was launched by NATO on the premises of u2018an attack against one is an attack against all.'

It also was significant that there was a large pipeline deal in the works, with Georgia sitting in a key strategic position. Georgia lies between Russia and Turkey, between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, and above Iran and Iraq. The significance of Georgia as a strategic outpost cannot be underestimated. This is true, particularly when it comes to pipelines.

The Baku Tblisi Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline, the second largest pipeline in the world, travels from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, through Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to Ceyhan, a Mediterranean port city in Turkey. This pipeline creates a route that bypasses both Iran and Russia, to bring Caspian Basin oil resources u201Cto the United States, Israel and Western European markets.u201D The US company Bechtel, was the main contractor for construction, procurement and engineering, while British Petroleum (BP), is the leading shareholder in the project.[49] Israel gets much of its oil via Turkey through the BTC pipeline route, which likely played a large part in Israel's support for Georgia in the conflict,[50] as a continual standoff between the West and the East (Russia/China) takes place for control of the world's resources.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder, with David Rockefeller, of the Trilateral Commission, and Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser who played a key role in the creation of the Afghan Mujahideen, which became known as Al-Qaeda, wrote an op-ed for Time Magazine at the outbreak of the Russia-Georgia conflict. Brzezinski, being a Cold War kingpin of geopolitical strategy, naturally blamed Russia for the conflict. However, he also revealed the true nature of the conflict.

He started by blaming Russia's u201Cinvasion of Georgiau201D on its u201Cimperial aims.u201D Brzezinski blamed much of this on the u201Cintense nationalistic mood that now permeates Russia's political elite.u201D Brzezinski went on to explain Georgia's strategic significance; stating that, u201Can independent Georgia is critical to the international flow of oil,u201D since the BTC pipeline u201Cprovides the West access to the energy resources of central Asia.u201D Brzezinski warned Russia of being u201Costracized internationally,u201D in particular its business elite, calling them u201Cvulnerableu201D because u201CRussia's powerful oligarchs have hundreds of billions of dollars in Western bank accounts,u201D which would be subject to a possible u201Cfreezingu201D by the West in the event of a u201CCold War-style standoff.u201D[51] Brzezinski's op-ed essentially amounted to geopolitical extortion.

Regime Change in Iran

There was, for many years, a split in the administration of George W. Bush in regards to US policy towards Iran. On the one hand, there was the hardliner neoconservative element, led by Dick Cheney, with Rumsfeld in the Pentagon; who were long pushing for a military confrontation with Iran. On the other hand, there was Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, who was pushing for a more diplomatic, or u201Csoftu201D approach to Iran.

In February of 2006, Condoleezza Rice introduced a new Iran strategy to the Senate, u201Cemphasizing the tools of so-called soft diplomacy. She called for ramping up funding to assist pro-democracy groups, public diplomacy initiatives, and cultural and education fellowships, in addition to expanding U.S.-funded radio, television, and Internet and satellite-based broadcasting, which are increasingly popular among younger Iranians.u201D She added that, u201Cwe are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their country.u201D There were three main facets to the program: u201CExpanding independent radio and televisionu201D; u201CFunding pro-democracy groups,u201D which u201Cwould lift bans on U.S. financing of Iran-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, human rights groups, and opposition candidatesu201D; and u201CBoosting cultural and education fellowships and exchanges,u201D which u201Cwould help pay Iranian students and scholars to enroll in U.S. universities.u201D[52]

This marked a significant change in U.S. foreign policy with Iran, which would have the effect of making Iran's domestic situation u201Cmore intense,u201D or as one expert put it, u201Cthis is the thing that can undo this regime.u201D Another expert stated that if the strategy failed, u201Cwe will have wasted the money, but worse than that, helped discredit legitimate opposition groups as traitors who receive money from the enemy to undermine Iran ‘s national interest.u201D[53]

In March of 2006, the Iraq Study Group was assembled as a group of high level diplomats and strategic elites to reexamine US policy toward Iraq, and more broadly, to Iran as well. It proposed a softer stance towards Iran, and one of its members, Robert Gates, former CIA director, left the Group in November of 2006 to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Cheney had fought to keep his ally in the Pentagon, but had failed in not only that, but also in preventing Robert Gates from being his replacement.[54]

In February of 2006, the Guardian reported that the Bush administration received u201Ca seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government,u201D and quoted Secretary Rice as saying, u201Cwe will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country.u201D The u201CUS is to increase funds to Iranian non-governmental bodies that promote democracy, human rights and trade unionism,u201D which started in 2005 for the first time since 1980, and that, u201Cthe US would seek to help build new dissident networks.u201D[55]

In April of 2006, the Financial Times reported that, u201CThe US and UK are working on a strategy to promote democratic change in Iran,u201D as u201CDemocracy promotion is a rubric to get the Europeans behind a more robust policy without calling it regime change.u201D[56] Christian Science Monitor reported that the goal of the strategy was u201Cregime change from within,u201D in the form of u201Ca pro-democracy revolution.u201D[57]

In July of 2007, it was reported that the White House had u201Cshifted back in favour of military action,u201D at the insistence of Cheney.[58] Josh Bolton, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, said in May of 2007, that US strategy consisted of three options: the first was economic sanctions, the second was regime change, and the third was military action. Bolton elaborated that, u201Cwe’ve got to go with regime change by bolstering opposition groups and the like, because that’s the circumstance most likely for an Iranian government to decide that it’s safer not to pursue nuclear weapons than to continue to do so. And if all else fails, if the choice is between a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, then I think we need to look at the use of force.u201D Ultimately, the aim would be u201Cto foment a popular revolution.u201D[59]

In September of 2007, it was reported that the Bush administration was pushing the US on the warpath with Iran, as u201CPentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran.u201D It was even reported that Secretary Rice was u201Cprepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.u201D It was reported that Rice and Cheney were working together to present a more unified front, finding a middle ground between Rice's soft diplomacy, and Cheney's preference to use u201Cbunker-busting tactical nuclear weaponsu201D against Iran.[60]

That same year, in 2007, the United States launched covert operations against Iran. ABC broke the story, reporting that, u201CThe CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government.u201D The President signed an order u201Cthat puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.u201D The approval of these covert operations marked a temporary move away from pursuing overt military action.[61]

As the Telegraph reported in May of 2007, u201CBush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.u201D As part of the plan, u201Cthe CIA [has] the right to collect intelligence on home soil, an area that is usually the preserve of the FBI, from the many Iranian exiles and emigrs within the US,u201D as u201CIranians in America have links with their families at home, and they are a good two-way source of information.u201D Further, u201CThe CIA will also be allowed to supply communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass internet censorship by the clerical regime.u201D[62]

u201CSoftu201D power became the favoured policy for promoting regime change in Iran. David Denehy, a senior adviser to the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, was u201Ccharged with overseeing the distribution of millions of dollars to advance the cause of a more democratic Iran.u201D He was responsible for disbursing the $75 million that Ms. Rice asked the Senate for in February of 2006. The appropriations included u201C$36.1 million into existing television and radio programs beaming into Iran,u201D and u201C$10 million would pay for public diplomacy and exchange programs, including helping Iranians who hope to study in America,u201D and u201C$20 million would support the efforts of civil-society groups u2014 media, legal and human rights nongovernmental organizations u2014 both outside and inside Iran.u201D The administration was requesting an additional $75 million for 2008.[63]

In 2008, award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker that in late 2007, Congress approved u201Ca request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.u201D While the Cheney hard-liners in the Bush administration were long pushing for a direct military confrontation with Iran, the military had to be reigned in from being controlled by the neo-conservatives. Robert Gates, a former CIA director, had replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, and while still saber rattling Iran, had to take a more strategic position, as many military leaders in the Pentagon felt u201Cthat bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue.u201D[64]

The covert operations that were approved ran at a cost of approximately $400 million dollars, and u201Care designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.u201D The operations were to be expanded under both the CIA and JSOC (the Joint Special Operations Command). The focus was u201Con undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,u201D of which a major facet was u201Cworking with opposition groups and passing money.u201D Hersh elaborated:

Many of the activities may be being carried out by dissidents in Iran, and not by Americans in the field. One problem with u201Cpassing moneyu201D (to use the term of the person familiar with the Finding) in a covert setting is that it is hard to control where the money goes and whom it benefits. Nonetheless, the former senior intelligence official said, u201CWe've got exposure, because of the transfer of our weapons and our communications gear. The Iranians will be able to make the argument that the opposition was inspired by the Americans. How many times have we tried this without asking the right questions? Is the risk worth it?u201D One possible consequence of these operations would be a violent Iranian crackdown on one of the dissident groups, which could give the Bush Administration a reason to intervene.[65]

Included in the strategy was to use ethnic tensions to undermine the government; however, this strategy is flawed. Unlike Pakistan, Lebanon, and Iraq, Iran is a much older country, u201Clike France and Germanyu2014and its citizens are just as nationalistic. The U.S. is overestimating ethnic tension in Iran.u201D[66] This turned out to be an important point in regards to the elections in the summer of 2009.

Flashback to 1953

To understand the nature of American and British u201Cdemocracy promotionu201D in Iran, it is important to examine their historical practices regarding u201Cdemocracyu201D in Iran. Specifically, the events of 1953 present a very important picture, in which the United States orchestrated its first foreign coup, with guidance and direction from the British, who had extensive oil interests in Iran. The first democratically elected government of Mohommad Mossadeq in 1951 announced the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later to be re-named British Petroleum), which had an exclusive monopoly on Iranian oil. This naturally angered the British, who, in 1952, convinced the CIA to help in a plot to overthrow Iran's government.

The idea to topple the Iranian government was born in Britain, but it didn't take much to convince the CIA to launch a joint operation with the SIS. Government documents were made public which revealed that CIA u201Cofficers orchestrating the Iran coup worked directly with royalist Iranian military officers, handpicked the prime minister’s replacement, sent a stream of envoys to bolster the shah’s courage, directed a campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist Party, and planted articles and editorial cartoons in newspapers.u201D The strategy was aimed at supporting an Iranian General and the Shah through CIA assets and financing, which would overthrow Mossadeq, u201Cparticularly if this combination should be able to get the largest mobs in the streets.u201D[67]

The Shah was to play a pivotal role, as he was u201Cto stand fast as the C.I.A. stirred up popular unrest and then, as the country lurched toward chaos, to issue royal decrees dismissing Dr. Mossadegh and appointing General Zahedi prime minister.u201D CIA operatives stoked pressure by pretending to be Iranian Communists, threatening Muslim leaders with u201Csavage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh,u201D in an effort to stir anti-Communist and anti-Mossadeq sentiments in the religious community. The CIA even bombed the house of a prominent Muslim. Further, the CIA was advancing a major propaganda campaign, as a major newspaper owner was paid $45,000 to support the efforts. The CIA, once the coup was underway, used American media as propaganda, in an attempt to legitimize the coup plotters, as the CIA sent The Associated Press a news release saying that, u201Cunofficial reports are current to the effect that leaders of the plot are armed with two decrees of the shah, one dismissing Mossadegh and the other appointing General Zahedi to replace him.u201D The CIA also disseminated this propaganda through Iranian media.

Following the beginning of the coup, which began on August 15, Mossadeq suspended the Parliament, which ultimately played u201Cinto the C.I.A.’s hands.u201D After having several plotters arrested, he let his guard down. Then the American Embassy planned a counterattack for August 19, specifically using religious forces. At this time, the Communist Party blamed u201CAnglo-American intrigueu201D for the coup. However, just as the CIA thought it was a failure, Iranian papers began publishing en masse the Shah's decrees, and suddenly large pro-Shah crowds were building in the streets. An Iranian journalist who was an important CIA agent, u201Cled a crowd toward Parliament, inciting people to set fire to the offices of a newspaper owned by Dr. Mossadegh’s foreign minister. Another Iranian C.I.A. agent led a crowd to sack the offices of pro-Tudeh papers.u201D

Then coup supporters in the military began to enter the streets, and soon u201Cthe crowds began to receive direct leadership from a few officers involved in the plot and some who had switched sides. Within an hour the central telegraph office fell, and telegrams were sent to the provinces urging a pro-shah uprising. After a brief shootout, police headquarters and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fell as well.u201D Interestingly, according to the declassified documents, the CIA u201Choped to plant articles in American newspapers saying Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi’s return resulted from a homegrown revolt against a Communist-leaning government,u201D but that ultimately, u201Cits operatives had only limited success in manipulating American reporters.u201D The CIA planted stories in US media, such as one instance where the State Department planted a CIA study in Newsweek.

One of the key lessons the CIA learned in this operation, was that it u201Cexposed the agency’s shortcomings in manipulating the American press.u201D The CIA even manipulated a reporter with the New York Times to disseminate propaganda. While Soviet media was proclaiming the US responsible for the coup, American mentions of this in the media dismissed these accusations outright, and never u201Cexamined such charges seriously.u201D[68]

By the end of Operation Ajax, as the CIA coup was codenamed, u201Csome 300 people had died in firefights in the streets of Tehran,u201D largely due to the CIA u201Cprovoking street violence.u201D The coup resulted in u201Cmore than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms.u201D[69]

The West Sponsors Terrorists in Iran

In 2005, Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, reported that, u201Cthe Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services,u201D was now working for the CIA in terror bombings inside Iran.[70] In February of 2007, the Telegraph reported that, u201CAmerica is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.u201D

The CIA operations u201Cinvolve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods,u201D and the article noted that, u201Cthere has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials,u201D and interestingly, the CIA operations are focused on u201Chelping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran’s border regions.u201D A former State Department counter-terrorism agent was quoted as saying, u201CThe latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime.u201D[71]

ABC News reported in April of 2007 that, u201CA Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005.u201D The group, named Jundullah, operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, on the boarder of Iran, and u201Chas taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.u201D[72]

In 2008, Pakistan's former Army Chief said that, u201Cthe US is supporting the outlawed Jundullah group to destabilize Iran,u201D and that, u201Cthe US is providing training facilities to Jundullah fighters – located in eastern areas of Iran – to create unrest in the area and affect the cordial ties between Iran and its neighbor Pakistan.u201D[73]

The 2009 Election Protests

The events of 1953 presented a blueprint for the 2009 Iranian election protests, an attempted u201Csoft revolutionu201D in Iran, also drawing from the u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D in the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe [See: Colour-Coded Revolutions and the Origins of World War III]. It is the thesis of this author that the 2009 election riots in Iran were a covert US (and British) plot designed to orchestrate regime change in Iran. The aim was to put in place a US-friendly leader, and thus, exert political, economic and strategic hegemony over Iran. Following the stratagem of US-funded u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D in the former Soviet bloc, but with heavy CIA influence, drawing parallels with the 1953 coup; the plot was ultimately unsuccessful.

While the 1953 coup revealed the failure of the CIA to greatly influence and manipulate US media, the 2009 riots revealed a great success in American media manipulation; however, ironically, it was the focus on this triumphant success that may have impeded the ultimate success of the plot. American popular perception of an illegitimate election and political oppression was enough to support regime change, but not to enact regime change. So, in a bitter irony for the US, the failure of the 1953 coup, became the success of the 2009 plot; while the success of the 1953 coup, became the failure of the 2009 plot. It just so happens that the success of the 1953 coup . . . was that it worked.

In November of 2008, Iranian media reported that, u201Cthe White House is making strenuous efforts to orchestrate a “Velvet Revolution” in Iran.u201D The former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations said that, u201Cthat Washington is conspiring to foment discord among Iranians in order to topple the Tehran government.u201D[74]

Iranian media reported in April of 2009, two months prior to the Presidential elections, that Iran’s Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had u201Cuncovered a plot for a u2018soft overthrow' of the country’s government,u201D and u201Caccused the Netherlands of conspiring to foment a velvet revolution in the country by supporting the opposition through the media and different Internet sites.u201D In 2005, the Dutch parliament funded a 15 million euro u201Cmedia polarization campaignu201D inside Iran, which was u201CCoupled with British assistance and secret US funding.u201D[75]

In the lead-up to the elections, there were increasing attacks within Iran. Two weeks before the election, on May 28, 2009, in southeastern Iran, a Shi'a mosque bombing resulted in the deaths of 20 people. An Iranian official accused the United States of involvement in arming the terrorists, who committed the act in a Sunni area of Iran, a religious minority within the country. Jundullah, the terrorist organization armed and funded by the US through the CIA, claimed responsibility for the bombing.[76] The following day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election campaign office was attacked by gunmen in the same city as the bombing, resulting in several injuries.[77] These attacks, aimed at stirring up religious tensions, are reminiscent of the attacks carried out by the CIA in Iran in the 1953 coup.

The day before the election, on June 11, 2009, it was reported that the National Endowment for Democracy, the main institution behind the u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D in Eastern Europe (covered in Part 2 of this series), had spent a lot of money that made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups inside Iran, as Mousavi was the Western favoured candidate in the Iranian elections. It was even reported that there was talk of a u201Cgreen revolutionu201D in Iran, as the Mousavi campaign was full of green scarves and banners at the rallies.[78]

On June 10, 2009, two days before the election, a New York Times blog reported that there was concern among many Ahmadinejad supporters in Iran that they fear u201Cthat what they are witnessing is a local version of the Orange Revolution, which swept an opposition government into power in Ukraine.u201D[79]

On June 12, 2009, the Iranian election took place. Immediately, the propaganda machine went into effect and the plan for a colour revolution in Iran was underway. Iran's state run news agency reported that Ahmadinejad had won in a landslide victory of 69%. Immediately, his main rival and the American-favoured candidate, Moussavi, claimed that he had won and that there were voting u201Cirregularities,u201D and was quoted as saying, u201CI am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin.u201D[80]

Immediately, Western governments denounced the election as a fraud, and protests began in the streets of Tehran, where young people clad in the green of the Mousavi campaign declared u201CDeath to the Dictatoru201D referring to Ahmadinejad. Mousavi encouraged the protests to continue, and in the second day of protests, young people u201Cbroke the windows of city buses on several streets in central Tehran. They burned banks, rubbish bins and piles of tyres used as flaming barricades. Riot police hit some of the protesters with batons while dozens of others holding shields and motorcycles stood guard nearby.u201D Western governments then openly declared their solidarity with the protests and denounced the Iranian government for repressing them.[81]

Despite all the claims of vote fraud and irregularities, those taking this position offered no actual evidence to support it. As Politico reported on June 15, the people proclaiming fraud u201Cignore the fact that Ahmadinejad's 62.6 percent of the vote in this year's election is essentially the same as the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential election.u201D These people also conveniently ignore many popular perceptions within Iran, such as the fact that most Iranians saw Ahmadinejad as having won the televised debates and that he can also be viewed as a populist campaigner. Ahmadinejad has the support of a large amount of Iranians, u201Cincluding the religiously pious, lower-income groups, civil servants and pensioners.u201D[82]

Some u201Cevidenceu201D for fraud was highly circumstantial, in that it claimed that because Mousavi comes from an Azeri background, u201Che was guaranteed to win Iran's Azeri-majority provinces,u201D and so, when Ahmadinejad won in these provinces, u201Cfraud is the only possible explanation.u201D However, Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri quite fluently, had formerly served as an official in two Azeri areas, and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khameini, is also Azeri.[83]

This also ignores the class based voting of Iranians. While the West tends to portray the Middle East and Africa through an Orientalist lens, viewing them as u201Cthe Other,u201D and often portraying the people of these regions as backwards or barbaric, reality is a far cry from Western perception. People in the Middle East, including in Iran, vote with concerns about the economy and social conditions in mind just as much as voters in the west do. Voting in the Middle East is not simply based upon religious or ethnic differences, there is more to consider, and any analysis that forgets this is flawed. Even the Financial Times was quoted as saying, u201CChange for the poor means food and jobs, not a relaxed dress code or mixed recreation,u201D and that, u201CPolitics in Iran is a lot more about class war than religion.u201D[84]

As James Petras wrote, u201CThe only group, which consistently favored Mousavi, was the university students and graduates, business owners and the upper middle class.u201D[85] These also happened to be the highly Westernized Iranians. The Iranians protesting in the u201Cgreen revolutionu201D were holding signs written in English, and were giving interviews to western media all in English. Many were western educated and raised. The Iranian diaspora in the west was also largely supportive of the u201Cgreen revolution,u201D as they are the sons and daughters of those who had emigrated out of Iran following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. They are the children of the exiled Iranian capitalist class, and do not represent a fair assessment of the internal Iranian population. After all, the poor and the masses do not have the means to emigrate to the west. Naturally, many westernized youth in Iran have legitimate concerns and social issues with the present way of governance within Iran; however, the majority of Iranians are more concerned with their daily meals than Islamic dress codes.

As Petras further pointed out, u201CThe u2018youth vote', which the Western media praised as u2018pro-reformist', was a clear minority of less than 30% but came from a highly privileged, vocal and largely English speaking group with a monopoly on the Western media.u201D[86] Even the Washington Post reported on June 15, about a major Western poll conducted in Iran three weeks prior to the election, in which it u201Cshowed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin – greater than his actual apparent margin of victory,u201D and the u201Cscientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran’s provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.u201D

The Washington Post article further pointed out that, u201CMuch commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.u201D Further, the only demographic where Mousavi was u201Cleading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians.u201D The article ended by saying that, u201CThe fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.u201D[87]

The Internet played a very large role in the international perception of the Iranian elections, as social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook were used to advance the aims of the u201Cgreen revolution,u201D often giving it the name the u201CTwitter Revolution.u201D Remember that in 2007, u201Ca CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation,u201D was put into effect, which were u201Cintended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.u201D As part of this, u201CThe CIA will also be allowed to supply communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass internet censorship by the clerical regime.u201D[88]

In the midst of the protests, the Iranian government cracked down on dissent, banning foreign reporters and blocking websites. As the Washington Times reported, u201CWell-developed Twitter lists showed a constant stream of situation updates and links to photos and videos, all of which painted a portrait of the developing turmoil. Digital photos and videos proliferated and were picked up and reported in countless external sources safe from the regime’s Net crackdown.u201D[89] Naturally, all of this information came from the upper class Western students, who had access to this technology, which they were using in English.

On June 15, u201Ca 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.u201D Further, the New York Times reported that, u201CMr. Cohen, a Stanford University graduate who is the youngest member of the State Department's policy planning staff, has been working with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other services to harness their reach for diplomatic initiatives.u201D[90]

It turned out only a small number of people in Iran actually used Twitter for organizational purposes; however, u201CTwitter did prove to be a crucial tool in the cat-and-mouse game between the opposition and the government over enlisting world opinion.u201D Twitter also took part in spreading disinformation during the protests, as the New York Times pointed out that, u201Csome of the biggest errors on Twitter that were quickly repeated and amplified by bloggers: that three million protested in Tehran last weekend (more like a few hundred thousand); that the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi was under house arrest (he was being watched); that the president of the election monitoring committee declared the election invalid last Saturday (not so).u201D[91]

On the 28th of June, the Iranian Intelligence Minister blamed western powers, specifically the United States and Britain, for the post-election protests and violence. Iran even arrested British embassy staff in Tehran.[92] On July 3, the head of Iran’s Guardians Council said that, u201CBritish embassy staff would be put on trial for inciting violent protests.u201D Iran had arrested nine u201CBritish embassy employees it accused of playing a role in organising pro-democracy demonstrations,u201D but had released seven of them by July. However, one Embassy staff member had been accused of u201Ca significant roleu201D in the election riots.[93]

Amidst all the British denials of any involvement, the Telegraph revealed in late July that two exiles, u201CAzadeh Assadi and Vahid Saderigh have been providing crucial support to opposition leaders in Tehran from their homes in London,u201D who u201Ctake their cue from Iran’s Green Movement which has been the rallying point for an unprecedented challenge to the leadership of the Islamic Republic.u201D They further organized the protests at the Iranian Embassy in London, which lasted for 31 days, longer than anywhere else.[94]

Hossein Rassam, head of the security and political division of the British Embassy in Tehran, was arrested under suspicions that he played a key role in the protests u201Cin providing guidance to diplomats and reporters of the British media.u201D Further, an Iranian-American scholar was arrested. In 2007, Iran arrested u201CHaleh Esfandiari, head of the Wilson Center’s Middle East program, and Kian Tajbakhsh, with links to the Soros institute, on suspicions of endangering the country’s national security.u201D They were released after three months detention.[95]

Of great interest were the statements made my former high-level American strategic kingpins of the foreign policy establishment in the wake of the riots: among them, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft. Former US National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, in an interview with Al-Jazeera shortly after the start of the protests, when asked if the US had intelligence agents on the ground in Iran, replied, without hesitation, u201COf course we do.u201D The interviewer asked if they would help the protesters, to which Scowcroft replied, u201CThey might be, who knows. But that's a far cry from helping protesters against the combined might of the Revolutionary Guard, the militias, and so on, and the police, who are so far, completely unified.u201D He explained that he feels the u201Cmovementu201D for change is there in Iran, and that, u201CIt's going to change Iran, I think that is almost inevitable.u201D[96]

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration, co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission, and arch-hawk geopolitical strategist, was interviewed on CNN shortly after the protests began. When asked how the situation could be worked out to resemble Eastern Europe, as in, successful colour revolutions putting western puppets in power, Brzezinski responded, u201CWell, I think it will not work out the way Eastern Europe worked out, and hopefully it will not end the way Tiananmen Square ended. Eastern Europe became intensely pro-Western, pro-American, and so forth.u201D Further, he explained, u201CIf there is a change of regime in Iran, there is a greater chance of accommodation, and I think that is to be fervently wished for. But that requires patience, intelligent manipulation, moral support, but no political interference.u201D[97]

Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State; was interviewed by BBC at the outbreak of the riots. He stated that, u201CNow if it turns out that it is not possible for a government to emerge in Iran that can deal with itself as a nation rather than as a cause, then we have a different situation. Then we may conclude that we must work for regime change in Iran from the outside.u201D[98]

Clearly, there were extensive Western interests and involvement behind the Iranian u201Cdemocracyu201D movement that resulted in the protests following the election. However, the ultimate goal of the attempted u201Ccolour revolutionu201D failed, as it did not succeed in achieving regime change. Brzezinski's strategy of u201Cintelligent manipulationu201D ultimately failed, and so, as Henry Kissinger stated, u201Cwe may conclude that we must work for regime change in Iran from the outside.u201D

Latin America Is Not to Be Left Out: The Coup in Honduras

It is important to take a look at recent events in Latin America in an imperial context to understand how wide and vast American and NATO imperial strategy is. While the world's eyes and media were fixated on events in Iran, another event was taking place in Latin America, which was conveniently ignored by international media.

On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military kidnapped the President of Honduras and flew him into exile. The official line was that the coup was prompted when Manuel Zelaya, the President of Honduras, was attempting to schedule a poll on holding a referendum about rewriting the constitution. The Supreme Court secretly issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya on June 26, u201Ccharging him with treason and abuse of power.u201D[99] The military entered his house two days later, and put him on a military plane to Costa Rica, and the same day, the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya and replace him with the Speaker of Congress Roberto Micheletti.

Zelaya happened to be a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, as well as Bolivian President Evo Morales; who represent the populist leaders of the new move to the left in Latin America, and pose a strong opposition force to the hegemony of US and Western interests in the region. Hugo Chavez alleged that the coup had the hands of the United States in it, and that the upper class in Honduras helped and u201Chave turned Honduras into a ‘banana republic’, into a political, military and terror base for the North American empire.u201D[100]

The New York Times reported that the Obama administration was u201Csurprisedu201D by the coup, u201CBut they also said that they had been working for several weeks to try to head off a political crisis in Honduras as the confrontation between Mr. Zelaya and the military over his efforts to lift presidential term limits escalated.u201D Further, u201CThe United States has long had strong ties to the Honduras military and helps train Honduran military forces.u201D It was further reported that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Zelaya on June 2, and that the United States thought Zelaya's plans for reforming the Constitution was a u201Cbad idea.u201D The US Ambassador to Honduras had held discussions with military officials where u201CThere was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that.u201D[101]

As it turned out, the General in the Honduran Army who overthrew Zelaya u201Cis a two-time graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, an institution that has trained hundreds of coup leaders and human rights abusers in Latin America.u201D Past graduates have included Argentine Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, u201CPanamanian dictators Gen. Omar Torrijos, who overthrew a civilian government in a 1968 coup, and Gen. Manuel Noriega, a five-time SOA graduate, who ruled the country and dealt in drugs while on the CIA payroll,u201D Ecuadoran dictator Gen. Guillermo Rodriguez, Bolivian dictators Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez and Gen. Guido Vildoso Calderon, and Peruvian strongman Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado.[102]

As was reported the following day of the coup, over the previous ten years, u201Cthe United States has delivered $18.41 million in weapons and defense articles to Honduras through the foreign military sales program,u201D with Foreign Military Financing totaling $7.3 million between 2003 and today, and u201CInternational Military Education and Training funds in that same period came to $14.82 million.u201D[103]

The Washington Post reported, two days following the coup, that when Clinton was asked if it was a US priority to see Zelaya reinstated, she responded, u201CWe haven’t laid out any demands that we’re insisting on, because we’re working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives.u201D Zelaya had fired Gen. Romeo Vasquez prior to the coup, and Air Force commander, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, along with many other military leaders resigned. Both Vasquez and Suazo were trained at the School of the Americas.[104]

An article in the Guardian published a few days after the coup stated that, as countries around the world condemned the coup and called for the reinstatement of Zelaya, u201CWashington’s ambivalence has begun to raise suspicions about what the US government is really trying to accomplish in this situation.u201D One possibility for this is that u201Cthe Obama administration may want to extract concessions from Zelaya as part of a deal for his return to office.u201D Following the coup, oppression in Honduras was rampant: u201Cpolitical repression, the closing of TV and radio stations, the detention of journalists, detention and physical abuse of diplomats and what the Committee to Protect Journalists has called a “media blackout” have yet to draw a serious rebuke from Washington.u201D As the author astutely stated:

The battle between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reform president who is supported by labour unions and social organisations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the supreme court and the Congress, but also the president. It is a recurrent story in Latin America, and the US has almost always sided with the elites.[105]

This harks back to 2002, when the United States had its hands involved in the attempted coup in Venezuela to oust President Hugo Chavez, which ultimately failed. In the months leading up to the attempted coup in April 2002, US officials held a series of meetings with u201CVenezuelan military officers and opposition activists.u201D Further, u201Ca few weeks before the coup attempt, administration officials met Pedro Carmona, the business leader who took over the interim government after President Hugo Chavez was arrested.u201D

The Pentagon even u201Cconfirmed that the Venezuelan army’s chief of staff, General Lucas Romero Rincon, visited the Pentagon in December and met the assistant secretary of defence for western hemispheric affairs.u201D Further, when u201CMr Carmona and other opposition leaders came to the US they met Otto Reich, the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs.u201D Otto Reich was a veteran of the Reagan-era u201Cdirty tricksu201D in Latin America, such as the contra operations, which involved the US funding drug-running terrorists and death squads, and Reich u201Cwas the head of the office of public diplomacy in the state department, which was later found to have been involved in covert pro-contra propaganda.u201D[106]

The Observer reported that the coup attempt in 2002 u201Cwas closely tied to senior officials in the US government.u201D Among the officials involved, u201CElliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.u201D There was of course Otto Reich, who met with all the coup leaders in the months preceding the coup. Finally, there was John Negroponte, who was in 2002 u201Cambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan’s ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16, tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said Negroponte had been ‘informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez’ at the beginning of the year.u201D[107]

Two weeks following the coup in Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, the man who replaced Zelaya following the coup, showed up at the house of President

This is Part 2 of the Series, "The Origins of World War III"
Part
1: An Imperial Strategy for a New World Order: The Origins of World
War III

Introduction

Following
US geo-strategy in what Brzezinski termed the u201Cglobal Balkans,u201D
the US government has worked closely with major NGOs to u201Cpromote
democracyu201D and u201Cfreedomu201D in former Soviet republics, playing a role
behind the scenes in fomenting what are termed u201Ccolour revolutions,u201D
which install US and Western-friendly puppet leaders to advance
the interests of the West, both economically and strategically.

Part
2 of this essay on u201CThe Origins of World War IIIu201D analyzes the colour
revolutions as being a key stratagem in imposing the US-led New
World Order. The u201Ccolour revolutionu201D or u201Csoftu201D revolution strategy
is a covert political tactic of expanding NATO and US influence
to the borders of Russia and even China; following in line with
one of the primary aims of US strategy in the New World Order: to
contain China and Russia and prevent the rise of any challenge to
US power in the region.

These
revolutions are portrayed in the western media as popular democratic
revolutions, in which the people of these respective nations demand
democratic accountability and governance from their despotic leaders
and archaic political systems. However, the reality is far from
what this utopian imagery suggests. Western NGOs and media heavily
finance and organize opposition groups and protest movements, and
in the midst of an election, create a public perception of vote
fraud in order to mobilize the mass protest movements to demand
u201Ctheiru201D candidate be put into power. It just so happens that u201Ctheiru201D
candidate is always the Western US-favoured candidate, whose campaign
is often heavily financed by Washington; and who proposes US-friendly
policies and neoliberal economic conditions. In the end, it is the
people who lose out, as their genuine hope for change and accountability
is denied by the influence the US wields over their political leaders.

The
soft revolutions also have the effect of antagonizing China and
Russia, specifically, as it places US protectorates on their borders,
and drives many of the former Warsaw Pact nations to seek closer
political, economic and military cooperation. This then exacerbates
tensions between the west and China and Russia; which ultimately
leads the world closer to a potential conflict between the two blocs.

Serbia

Serbia
experienced its u201Ccolour revolutionu201D in October of 2000, which led
to the overthrow of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. As the Washington
Post reported in December of 2000, from 1999 on, the US undertook
a major u201Celectoral strategyu201D to oust Milosevic, as u201CU.S.-funded
consultants played a crucial role behind the scenes in virtually
every facet of the anti-Milosevic drive, running tracking polls,
training thousands of opposition activists and helping to organize
a vitally important parallel vote count. U.S. taxpayers paid for
5,000 cans of spray paint used by student activists to scrawl anti-Milosevic
graffiti on walls across Serbia, and 2.5 million stickers with the
slogan “He’s Finished,” which became the revolution’s catchphrase.u201D
Further, according to Michael Dobbs, writing in the Washington
Post, some u201C20 opposition leaders accepted an invitation
from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) in
October 1999 to a seminar at the Marriott Hotel in Budapest.u201D

Interestingly,
u201CSome Americans involved in the anti-Milosevic effort said they
were aware of CIA activity at the fringes of the campaign, but had
trouble finding out what the agency was up to. Whatever it was,
they concluded it was not particularly effective. The lead role
was taken by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the government’s foreign assistance agency, which channeled
the funds through commercial contractors and nonprofit groups such
as NDI and its Republican counterpart, the International Republican
Institute (IRI).u201D

The NDI (National Democratic Institute), u201Cworked closely with Serbian
opposition parties, IRI focused its attention on Otpor, which served
as the revolution’s ideological and organizational backbone. In
March, IRI paid for two dozen Otpor leaders to attend a seminar
on nonviolent resistance at the Hilton Hotel in Budapest.u201D At the
seminar, u201Cthe Serbian students received training in such matters
as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with symbols, how
to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial
regime.u201D[1]

As
the New York Times revealed, Otpor, the major student opposition
group, had a steady flow of money coming from the National Endowment
for Democracy (NED), a Congress-funded u201Cdemocracy promotingu201D organization.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gave
money to Otpor, as did the International Republican Institute, u201Canother
nongovernmental Washington group financed partly by A.I.D.u201D[2]

Georgia

In
2003, Georgia went through its u201CRose Revolution,u201D which led to the
overthrow of president Eduard Shevardnadze, replacing him with Mikhail
Saakashvili after the 2004 elections. In a November 2003 article
in The Globe and Mail, it was reported that a US-based foundation
u201Cbegan laying the brickwork for the toppling of Georgian President
Eduard Shevardnadze,u201D as funds from his non-profit organization
u201Csent a 31-year-old Tbilisi activist named Giga Bokeria to Serbia
to meet with members of the Otpor (Resistance) movement and learn
how they used street demonstrations to topple dictator Slobodan
Milosevic. Then, in the summer,u201D the u201Cfoundation paid for a return
trip to Georgia by Otpor activists, who ran three-day courses teaching
more than 1,000 students how to stage a peaceful revolution.u201D

This
US-based foundation u201Calso funded a popular opposition television
station that was crucial in mobilizing support for [the] u2018velvet
revolution,' and [it] reportedly gave financial support to a youth
group that led the street protests.u201D The owner of the foundation
u201Chas a warm relationship with Mr. Shevardnadze’s chief opponent,
Mikhail Saakashvili, a New York-educated lawyer who is expected
to win the presidency in an election scheduled for Jan. 4.u201D

During
a press conference a week before his resignation, Mr. Shevardnadze
said that the US foundation u201Cis set against the President
of Georgia.u201D Moreover, u201CMr. Bokeria, whose Liberty Institute received
money from both [the financier's foundation] and the U.S. government-backed
Eurasia Institute, says three other organizations played key roles
in Mr. Shevardnadze’s downfall: Mr. Saakashvili’s National Movement
party, the Rustavi-2 television station and Kmara! (Georgian for
Enough!), a youth group that declared war on Mr. Shevardnadze [in]
April and began a poster and graffiti campaign attacking government
corruption.u201D [3]

The
day following the publication of the previously quoted article,
the author published another article in the Globe and Mail explaining
that the u201Cbloodless revolutionu201D in Georgia u201Csmells more like another
victory for the United States over Russia in the post-Cold War international
chess game.u201D The author, Mark MacKinnon, explained that Eduard Shevardnadze's
downfall lied u201Cin the oil under the Caspian Sea, one of the world’s
few great remaining, relatively unexploited, sources of oil,u201D as
u201CGeorgia and neighbouring Azerbaijan, which borders the Caspian,
quickly came to be seen not just as newly independent countries,
but as part of an u2018energy corridor'.u201D Plans were drawn up for a
massive u201Cpipeline that would run through Georgia to Turkey and the
Mediterranean.u201D It is worth quoting MacKinnon at length:

When
these plans were made, Mr. Shevardnadze was seen as an asset by
both Western investors and the U.S. government. His reputation as
the man who helped end the Cold War gave investors a sense of confidence
in the country, and his stated intention to move Georgia out of
Russia’s orbit and into Western institutions such as the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and the European Union played well at the U.S.
State Department.

The
United States quickly moved to embrace Georgia, opening a military
base in the country [in 2001] to give Georgian soldiers “anti-terrorist”
training. They were the first U.S. troops to set up in a former
Soviet republic.

But
somewhere along the line, Mr. Shevardnadze reversed course and decided
to once more embrace Russia. This summer, Georgia signed a secret
25-year deal to make the Russian energy giant Gazprom its sole supplier
of gas. Then it effectively sold the electricity grid to another
Russian firm, cutting out AES, the company that the U.S. administration
had backed to win the deal. Mr. Shevardnadze attacked AES as “liars
and cheats.” Both deals dramatically increased Russian influence
in Tbilisi.

Following
the elections in Georgia, the US-backed and educated Mikhail Saakashvili
ascended to the Presidency and u201Cwon the day.u201D[4] This is again an
example of the intimate relationship between oil geopolitics and
US foreign policy. The colour revolution was vital in pressing US
and NATO interests forward in the region; gaining control over Central
Asia's gas reserves and keeping Russia from expanding its influence.
This follows directly in line with the US-NATO imperial strategy
for the new world order, following the collapse of the USSR. [This
strategy is outlined in detail in Part 1 of this essay: An
Imperial Strategy for a New World Order: The Origins of World War
III].

Ukraine

In
2004, Ukraine went through its u201COrange Revolution,u201D in which opposition
and pro-Western leader Viktor Yushchenko became President, defeating
Viktor Yanukovych. As the Guardian revealed in 2004, that following
the disputed elections (as happens in every u201Ccolour revolutionu201D),
u201Cthe democracy guerrillas of the Ukrainian Pora youth movement have
already notched up a famous victory – whatever the outcome of the
dangerous stand-off in Kiev,u201D however, u201Cthe campaign is an American
creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in
western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four
years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple
unsavoury regimes.u201D

The
author, Ian Traynor, explained that, u201CFunded and organised by the
US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats,
the two big American parties and US non-government organisations,
the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat
Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.u201D Further, u201CThe Democratic
party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International
Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the
main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as
the Freedom House NGOu201D and the same billionaire financier involved
in Georgia's Rose Revolution. In implementing the regime-change
strategy, u201CThe usually fractious oppositions have to be united behind
a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the
regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective grounds,
even if he or she is anti-American.u201D

Traynor continues:

Freedom
House and the Democratic party’s NDI helped fund and organise the
“largest civil regional election monitoring effort” in Ukraine,
involving more than 1,000 trained observers. They also organised
exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Mr Yushchenko an 11-point
lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed.

The
exit polls are seen as critical because they seize the initiative
in the propaganda battle with the regime, invariably appearing first,
receiving wide media coverage and putting the onus on the authorities
to respond.

The
final stage in the US template concerns how to react when the incumbent
tries to steal a lost election.

[.
. . ] In Belgrade, Tbilisi, and now Kiev, where the authorities
initially tried to cling to power, the advice was to stay cool but
determined and to organise mass displays of civil disobedience,
which must remain peaceful but risk provoking the regime into violent
suppression.[5]

As
an article in the Guardian by Jonathan Steele explained, the opposition
leader, Viktor Yushchenko, who disputed the election results, u201Cserved
as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, and
some of his backers are also linked to the brutal industrial clans
who manipulated Ukraine’s post-Soviet privatization.u201D He further
explained that election rigging is mainly irrelevant, as u201CThe decision
to protest appears to depend mainly on realpolitik and whether the
challengers or the incumbent are considered more u2018pro-western' or
u2018pro-market'.u201D In other words, those who support a neoliberal economic
agenda will have the support of the US-NATO, as neoliberalism is
their established international economic order and advances their
interests in the region. 

Moreover,
u201CIn Ukraine, Yushchenko got the western nod, and floods of money
poured in to groups which support him, ranging from the youth organisation,
Pora, to various opposition websites. More provocatively, the US
and other western embassies paid for exit polls.u201D This is emblematic
of the strategic importance of the Ukraine to the United States,
u201Cwhich refuses to abandon its cold war policy of encircling Russia
and seeking to pull every former Soviet republic to its side.u201D[6]

One
Guardian commentator pointed out the hypocrisy of western media
coverage:  u201CTwo million anti-war demonstrators can stream though
the streets of London and be politically ignored, but a few tens
of thousands in central Kiev are proclaimed to be u2018the people',
while the Ukrainian police, courts and governmental institutions
are discounted as instruments of oppression.u201D It was also explained
that, u201CEnormous rallies have been held in Kiev in support of the
prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, but they are not shown on our
TV screens: if their existence is admitted, Yanukovich supporters
are denigrated as having been u2018bussed in'. The demonstrations in
favour of Viktor Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated
sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities
of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are
spontaneous.u201D[7]

In
2004, the Associated Press reported that, u201CThe Bush administration
has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political
organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor
Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite an exit
poll indicating he won last month’s disputed runoff election.u201D The
money, they state, u201Cwas funneled through organizations
such as the Eurasia Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans
and Democrats that organized election training, with human rights
forums or with independent news outlets.u201D However, even government
officials u201Cacknowledge that some of the money helped train groups
and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate.u201D

The
report stated that some major international foundations funded the
exit polls, which according to the incumbent leader were u201Cskewed.u201D
These foundations included u201CThe National Endowment for Democracy,
which receives its money directly from Congress; the Eurasia Foundation,
which receives money from the State Department, and the Renaissance
Foundation,u201D which receives money from the same billionaire financier
as well as the US State Department. Since the State Department is
involved, that implies that this funding is quite directly enmeshed
in US foreign policy strategy. u201COther countries involved included
Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Sweden
and Denmark.u201D Also involved in funding certain groups and activities
in the Ukraine was the International Republican Institute and the
National Democratic Institute, which was chaired by former Secretary
of States Madeline Albright at the time.[8]

Mark
Almond wrote for the Guardian in 2004 of the advent of u201CPeople Power,u201D
describing it in relation to the situation that was then breaking
in the Ukraine, and stated that, u201CThe upheaval in Ukraine is presented
as a battle between the people and Soviet-era power structures.
The role of Western Cold War–era agencies is taboo. Poke your
nose into the funding of the lavish carnival in Kiev, and the shrieks
of rage show that you have touched a neuralgic point of the New
World Order.u201D

Almond
elaborated:

“Throughout
the 1980s, in the build-up to 1989′s velvet revolutions, a small
army of volunteers – and, let’s be frank, spies – co-operated to
promote what became People Power. A network of interlocking foundations
and charities mushroomed to organise the logistics of transferring
millions of dollars to dissidents. The money came overwhelmingly
from Nato states and covert allies such as “neutral” Sweden.

[
...] The hangover from People Power is shock therapy. Each successive
crowd is sold a multimedia vision of Euro-Atlantic prosperity by
western-funded “independent” media to get them on the streets. No
one dwells on the mass unemployment, rampant insider dealing, growth
of organised crime, prostitution and soaring death rates in successful
People Power states.

As
Almond delicately put it, u201CPeople Power is, it turns out, more about
closing things than creating an open society. It shuts factories
but, worse still, minds. Its advocates demand a free market in everything – except opinion. The current ideology of New World Order ideologues,
many of whom are renegade communists, is Market-Leninism – that
combination of a dogmatic economic model with Machiavellian methods
to grasp the levers of power.u201D[9]

As
Mark MacKinnon reported for the Globe and Mail, Canada, too, supported
the efforts of the youth activist group, Pora, in the Ukraine, providing
funding for the u201Cpeople power democracyu201D movement. As MacKinnon
noted, u201CThe Bush administration was particularly keen to see a pro-Western
figure as president to ensure control over a key pipeline running
from Odessa on the Black Sea to Brody on the Polish border.u201D However,
u201CThe outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, had recently reversed the
flow so the pipeline carried Russian crude south instead of helping
U.S. producers in the Caspian Sea region ship their product to Europe.u201D
As MacKinnon analyzes, the initial funding from western nations
came from Canada, although this was eventually far surpassed in
amount by the United States.

Andrew
Robinson, Canada's ambassador to Ukraine at the time, in 2004, u201Cbegan
to organize secret monthly meetings of Western ambassadors, presiding
over what he called “donor co-ordination” sessions among 28 countries
interested in seeing Mr. Yushchenko succeed. Eventually, he acted
as the group’s spokesman and became a prominent critic of the Kuchma
government’s heavy-handed media control.u201D Canada further u201Cinvested
in a controversial exit poll, carried out on election day by Ukraine’s
Razumkov Centre and other groups, that contradicted the official
results showing Mr. Yanukovich had won.u201D Once the new, pro-Western
government was in, it u201Cannounced its intention to reverse the flow
of the Odessa-Brody pipeline.u201D[10]

Again,
this follows the example of Georgia, where several US and NATO interests
are met through the success of the u201Ccolour revolutionu201D; simultaneously
preventing Russian expansion and influence from spreading in the
region as well as advancing US and NATO control and influence over
the major resources and transport corridors of the region.

Daniel
Wolf wrote for the Guardian that, u201CFor most of the people gathered
in Kiev’s Independence Square, the demonstration felt spontaneous.
They had every reason to want to stop the government candidate,
Viktor Yanukovich, from coming to power, and they took the chance
that was offered to them. But walking through the encampment last
December, it was hard to ignore the evidence of meticulous preparation – the soup kitchens and tents for the demonstrators, the slickness
of the concert, the professionalism of the TV coverage, the proliferation
of the sickly orange logo wherever you looked.u201D He elaborated, writing,
u201Cthe events in the square were the result of careful, secret planning
by Yushchenko’s inner circle over a period of years. The true story
of the orange revolution is far more interesting than the fable
that has been widely accepted.u201D

Roman
Bessmertny, Yushchenko’s campaign manager, two years prior to the
2004 elections, u201Cput as many as 150,000 people through training
courses, seminars, practical tuition conducted by legal and media
specialists. Some attending these courses were members of election
committees at local, regional and national level; others were election
monitors, who were not only taught what to watch out for but given
camcorders to record it on video. More than 10,000 cameras were
distributed, with the aim of recording events at every third polling
station.u201D Ultimately, it was an intricately well-planned public
relations media-savvy campaign, orchestrated through heavy financing.
Hardly the sporadic u201Cpeople poweru201D notion applied to the u201Cpeaceful
coupu201D in the western media.[11]

The
u201CTulip Revolutionu201D in Kyrgyzstan

In
2005, Kyrgyzstan underwent its u201CTulip Revolutionu201D in which the incumbent
was replaced by the pro-Western candidate through another u201Cpopular
revolution.u201D As the New York Times reported in March of 2005, shortly
before the March elections, u201Can opposition newspaper ran photographs
of a palatial home under construction for the country’s deeply unpopular
president, Askar Akayev, helping set off widespread outrage and
a popular revolt.u201D However, this u201Cnewspaper was the recipient of
United States government grants and was printed on an American government-financed
printing press operated by Freedom House, an American organization
that describes itself as u2018a clear voice for democracy and freedom
around the world'.u201D

Moreover,
other countries that have u201Chelped underwrite programs to develop
democracy and civil societyu201D in Kyrgyzstan were Britain, the Netherlands
and Norway. These countries collectively u201Cplayed a crucial role
in preparing the ground for the popular uprising that swept opposition
politicians to power.u201D Money mostly flowed from the United States,
in particular, through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED),
as well as through u201Cthe Freedom House printing press or Kyrgyz-language
service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a pro-democracy broadcaster.u201D
The National Democratic Institute also played a major financing
role, for which one of the chief beneficiaries of their financial
aid said, u201CIt would have been absolutely impossible for this to
have happened without that help.u201D

The
Times further reported that:

“American
money helps finance civil society centers around the country where
activists and citizens can meet, receive training, read independent
newspapers and even watch CNN or surf the Internet in some. The
N.D.I. [National Democratic Institute] alone operates 20 centers
that provide news summaries in Russian, Kyrgyz and Uzbek.

The
United States sponsors the American University in Kyrgyzstan, whose
stated mission is, in part, to promote the development of civil
society, and pays for exchange programs that send students and non-governmental
organization leaders to the United States. Kyrgyzstan’s new prime
minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was one.

All
of that money and manpower gave the coalescing Kyrgyz opposition
financing and moral support in recent years, as well as the infrastructure
that allowed it to communicate its ideas to the Kyrgyz people.”

As
for those u201Cwho did not read Russian or have access to the newspaper
listened to summaries of its articles on Kyrgyz-language Radio Azattyk,
the local United States-government financed franchise of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.u201D Other u201Cindependentu201D media was paid for courtesy
of the US State Department.[12]

As
the Wall Street Journal revealed prior to the elections, opposition
groups, NGOs and u201Cindependentu201D media in Kyrgyzstan were getting
financial assistance from Freedom House in the US, as well as the
US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Journal reported
that, u201CTo avoid provoking Russia and violating diplomatic norms,
the U.S. can’t directly back opposition political parties. But it
underwrites a web of influential NGOs whose support of press freedom,
the rule of law and clean elections almost inevitably pits them
against the entrenched interests of the old autocratic regimes.u201D

As
the Journal further reported, Kyrgyzstan u201Coccupies a strategic location.
The U.S. and Russia both have military bases here. The country’s
five million citizens, mostly Muslim, are sandwiched in a tumultuous
neighborhood among oil-rich Kazakhstan, whose regime tolerates little
political dissent; dictatorial Uzbekistan, which has clamped down
on foreign aid groups and destitute Tajikistan.u201D

In
the country, a main opposition NGO, the Coalition for Democracy
and Civil Rights, gets its funding u201Cfrom the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs, a Washington-based nonprofit
funded by the U.S. government, and from USAID.u201D Other agencies reported
to be involved, either through funding or ideological-technical
promotion (see: propaganda), are the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), the Albert Einstein Institute, Freedom House, and the US
State Department.[13]

President
Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan had referred to a u201Cthird forceu201D gaining
power in his country. The term was borrowed from one of the most
prominent US think tanks, as u201Cthird forceu201D is:

“…
which details how western-backed non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) can promote regime and policy change all over the world.
The formulaic repetition of a third “people power” revolution in
the former Soviet Union in just over one year – after the similar
events in Georgia in November 2003 and in Ukraine last Christmas – means that the post-Soviet space now resembles Central America
in the 1970s and 1980s, when a series of US-backed coups consolidated
that country’s control over the western hemisphere.”

As
the Guardian reported:

“Many
of the same US government operatives in Latin America have plied
their trade in eastern Europe under George Bush, most notably Michael
Kozak, former US ambassador to Belarus, who boasted in these pages
in 2001 that he was doing in Belarus exactly what he had been doing
in Nicaragua: “supporting democracy”.

Further:

“The
case of Freedom House is particularly arresting. Chaired by the
former CIA director James Woolsey, Freedom House was a major sponsor
of the orange revolution in Ukraine. It set up a printing press
in Bishkek in November 2003, which prints 60 opposition journals.
Although it is described as an “independent” press, the body that
officially owns it is chaired by the bellicose Republican senator
John McCain, while the former national security adviser Anthony
Lake sits on the board. The US also supports opposition radio and
TV.”[14]

So
again, the same formula was followed in the Central Asian Republics
of the former Soviet Union. This US foreign-policy strategy of promoting
u201Csoft revolutionu201D is managed through a network of American and international
NGOs and think tanks. It advances NATO and, in particular, US interests
in the region.

Conclusion

The
soft revolutions or u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D are a key stratagem in
the New World Order; advancing, through deceptions and manipulation,
the key strategy of containing Russia and controlling key resources.
This strategy is critical to understanding the imperialistic nature
of the New World Order, especially when it comes to identifying
when this strategy is repeated; specifically in relation to the
Iranian elections of 2009.

Part
1 of this essay outlined the US-NATO imperial strategy for entering
the New World Order, following the break-up of the Soviet Union
in 1991. The primary aim was focused on encircling Russia and China
and preventing the rise of a new superpower. The US was to act as
the imperial hegemon, serving international financial interests
in imposing the New World Order. Part 2 outlined the US imperial
strategy of using u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D to advance its interests
in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, following along the overall
policy outlined in Part 1, of containing Russia and China from expanding
influence and gaining access to key natural resources.

The
third and final part to this essay analyzes the nature of the imperial
strategy to construct a New World Order, focusing on the increasing
conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Latin America, Eastern
Europe and Africa; and the potential these conflicts have for starting
a new world war with China and Russia. In particular, its focus
is within the past few years, and emphasizes the increasing nature
of conflict and war in the New World Order. Part 3 looks at the
potential for u201CA New World War for a New World Order.u201D

Endnotes

[1]       
Michael Dobbs, U.S. Advice Guided Milosevic Opposition. The
Washington Post: December 11, 2000: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18395-2000Dec3?language=printer

[2]       
Roger Cohen, Who Really Brought Down Milosevic? The New York
Times: November 26, 2000: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/magazine/who-really-brought-down-milosevic.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[3]       
Mark MacKinnon, Georgia revolt carried mark of Soros. The
Globe and Mail: November 23, 2003: http://www.markmackinnon.ca/dispatches_georgia3.html

[4]       
Mark MacKinnon, Politics, pipelines converge in Georgia.
The Globe and Mail: November 24, 2003: http://www.markmackinnon.ca/dispatches_georgia2.html

[5]       
Ian Traynor, US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev. The
Guardian: November 26, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

[6]       
Jonathan Steele, Ukraine’s postmodern coup d’etat. The Guardian:
November 26, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.comment

[7]       
John Laughland, The revolution televised. The Guardian: November
27, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/nov/27/pressandpublishing.comment

[8]       
Matt Kelley, U.S. money has helped opposition in Ukraine.
Associated Press: December 11, 2004: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041211/news_1n11usaid.html

[9]       
Mark Almond, The price of People Power. The Guardian: December
7, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec/07/ukraine.comment

[10]     
Mark MacKinnon, Agent orange: Our secret role in Ukraine.
The Globe and Mail: April 14, 2007: http://www.markmackinnon.ca/dispatches_ukraine4.html

[11]     
Daniel Wolf, A 21st century revolt. The Guardian: May 13,
2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/13/ukraine.features11

[12]     
Craig S. Smith, U.S. Helped to Prepare the Way for Kyrgyzstan’s
Uprising. The New York Times: March 30, 2005: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806E4D9123FF933A05750C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[13]     
Philip Shishkin, In Putin’s Backyard, Democracy Stirs –
With U.S. Help. The Wall Street Journal: February 25, 2005: http://www.iri.org/newsarchive/2005/2005-02-25-News-WSJ.asp

[14]     
John Laughland, The mythology of people power. The Guardian:
April 1, 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/01/usa.russia

This originally
appeared on Global Research.

November
10, 2009

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.

In the face
of total global economic collapse, the prospects of a massive international
war are increasing. Historically, periods of imperial decline and
economic crisis are marked by increased international violence and
war. The decline of the great European empires was marked by World
War I and World War II, with the Great Depression taking place in
the intermediary period.

Currently,
the world is witnessing the decline of the American empire, itself
a product born out of World War II. As the post-war imperial hegemon,
America ran the international monetary system and reigned as champion
and arbitrator of the global political economy.

To manage the
global political economy, the US has created the single largest
and most powerful military force in world history. Constant control
over the global economy requires constant military presence and
action.

Now that both
the American empire and global political economy are in decline
and collapse, the prospect of a violent end to the American imperial
age is drastically increasing.

This essay
is broken into three separate parts. The first part covers US-NATO
geopolitical strategy since the end of the Cold War, at the beginning
of the New World Order, outlining the western imperial strategy
that led to the war in Yugoslavia and the u201CWar on Terror.u201D Part
2 analyzes the nature of u201Csoft revolutionsu201D or u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D
in US imperial strategy, focusing on establishing hegemony over
Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Part 3 analyzes the nature of the
imperial strategy to construct a New World Order, focusing on the
increasing conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Latin America,
Eastern Europe and Africa; and the potential these conflicts have
for starting a new world war with China and Russia.

Defining
a New Imperial Strategy

In 1991, with
the collapse of the Soviet Union, US-NATO foreign policy had to
re-imagine its role in the world. The Cold War served as a means
of justifying US imperialist expansion across the globe with the
aim of u201Ccontainingu201D the Soviet threat. NATO itself was created and
existed for the sole purpose of forging an anti-Soviet alliance.
With the USSR gone, NATO had no reason to exist, and the US had
to find a new purpose for its imperialist strategy in the world.

In 1992, the
US Defense Department, under the leadership of Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney [later to be George Bush Jr.'s VP], had the Pentagon's
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz [later to
be George Bush Jr.'s Deputy Secretary of Defense and President of
the World Bank], write up a defense document to guide American foreign
policy in the post-Cold War era, commonly referred to as the u201CNew
World Order.u201D

The Defense
Planning Guidance document was leaked in 1992, and revealed that,
u201CIn a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase,
the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military
mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival
superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories
of the former Soviet Union,u201D and that, u201CThe classified document
makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position
can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military
might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American
primacy.u201D

Further, u201Cthe
new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military
power whose leaders u2018must maintain the mechanisms for deterring
potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role'.u201D Among the necessary challenges to American supremacy,
the document u201Cpostulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea,u201D
and identified China and Russia as its major threats. It further
u201Csuggests that the United States could also consider extending to
Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar
to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states
along the Persian Gulf.u201D[1]

NATO
and Yugoslavia

The wars in
Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s served as a justification for the
continued existence of NATO in the world, and to expand American
imperial interests in Eastern Europe.

The World Bank
and IMF set the stage for the destabilization of Yugoslavia. After
long-time dictator of Yugoslavia, Josip Tito, died in 1980, a leadership
crisis developed. In 1982, American foreign policy officials organized
a set of IMF and World Bank loans, under the newly created Structural
Adjustment Programs (SAPs), to handle the crisis of the $20 billion
US debt. The effect of the loans, under the SAP, was that they u201Cwreaked
economic and political havoc… The economic crisis threatened political
stability … it also threatened to aggravate simmering ethnic tensions.u201D[2]

In 1989, Slobodan
Milosevic became President of Serbia, the largest and most powerful
of all the Yugoslav republics. Also in 1989, Yugoslavia's Premier
traveled to the US to meet President George H.W. Bush in order to
negotiate another financial aid package. In 1990, the World Bank/IMF
program began, and the Yugoslav state's expenditures went towards
debt repayment. As a result, social programs were dismantled, the
currency devalued, wages frozen, and prices rose. The u201Creforms fueled
secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as
ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the
republic,u201D leading to Croatia and Slovenia's succession in 1991.[3]

In 1990, US
the intelligence community released a National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE), predicting that Yugoslavia would break apart, erupt in civil
war, and the report then placed blame on Serbian President Milosevic
for the coming destabilization.[4]

In 1991, conflict
broke out between Yugoslavia and Croatia, when it, too, declared
independence. A ceasefire was reached in 1992. Yet, the Croats continued
small military offensives until 1995, as well as participating in
the war in Bosnia. In 1995, Operation Storm was undertaken by Croatia
to try to retake the Krajina region. A Croatian general was recently
put on trial at The Hague for war crimes during this battle, which
was key to driving the Serbs out of Croatia and u201Ccemented Croatian
independence.u201D The US supported the operation and the CIA actively
provided intelligence to Croat forces, leading to the displacement
of between 150,000 and 200,000 Serbs, largely through means of murder,
plundering, burning villages and ethnic cleansing.[5] The Croatian
Army was trained by US advisers, and the general on trial was even
personally supported by the CIA.[6]

The Clinton
administration gave the u201Cgreen lightu201D to Iran to arm the Bosnian
Muslims and u201Cfrom 1992 to January 1996, there was an influx of Iranian
weapons and advisers into Bosnia.u201D Further, u201CIran, and other Muslim
states, helped to bring Mujihadeen fighters into Bosnia to fight
with the Muslims against the Serbs, ‘holy warriors’ from Afghanistan,
Chechnya, Yemen and Algeria, some of whom had suspected links with
Osama bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan.u201D

It was u201CWestern
intervention in the Balkans [that] exacerbated tensions and helped
to sustain hostilities. By recognising the claims of separatist
republics and groups in 1990/1991, Western elites – the American,
British, French and German – undermined government structures
in Yugoslavia, increased insecurities, inflamed conflict and heightened
ethnic tensions. And by offering logistical support to various sides
during the war, Western intervention sustained the conflict into
the mid-1990s. Clinton’s choice of the Bosnian Muslims as a cause
to champion on the international stage, and his administration’s
demands that the UN arms embargo be lifted so that the Muslims and
Croats could be armed against the Serbs, should be viewed in this
light.u201D[7]

During the
war in Bosnia, there u201Cwas a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling
though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of
the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist
groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah.u201D
Further, u201Cthe secret services of Ukraine, Greece and Israel were
busy arming the Bosnian Serbs.u201D[8] Germany's intelligence agency,
the BND, also ran arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims and Croatia
to fight against the Serbs.[9]

The US had
influenced the war in the region in a variety of ways. As the Observer
reported in 1995, a major facet of their involvement was through
u201CMilitary Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), a Virginia-based American
private company of retired generals and intelligence officers. The
American embassy in Zagreb admits that MPRI is training the Croats,
on licence from the US government.u201D Further, The Dutch u201Cwere convinced
that US special forces were involved in training the Bosnian army
and the Bosnian Croat Army (HVO).u201D[10]

As far back
as 1988, the leader of Croatia met with the German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl to create u201Ca joint policy to break up Yugoslavia,u201D and bring
Slovenia and Croatia into the u201CGerman economic zone.u201D So, US Army
officers were dispatched to Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, and Macedonia
as u201Cadvisersu201D and brought in US Special Forces to help.[11] During
the nine-month cease-fire in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, six
US generals met with Bosnian army leaders to plan the Bosnian offensive
that broke the cease-fire.[12]

In 1996, the
Albanian Mafia, in collaboration with the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA), a militant guerilla organization, took control over the enormous
Balkan heroin trafficking routes. The KLA was linked to former Afghan
Mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden.[13]

In 1997, the
KLA began fighting against Serbian forces,[14] and in 1998, the
US State Department removed the KLA from its list of terrorist organizations.[15]
Before and after 1998, the KLA was receiving arms, training and
support from the US and NATO, and Clinton's Secretary of State,
Madeline Albright, had a close political relationship with KLA leader
Hashim Thaci.[16]

Both the CIA
and German intelligence, the BND, supported the KLA terrorists in
Yugoslavia prior to and after the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
The BND had KLA contacts since the early 1990s, the same period
that the KLA was establishing its Al-Qaeda contacts.[17] KLA members
were trained by Osama bin Laden at training camps in Afghanistan.
Even the UN stated that much of the violence that occurred came
from KLA members, u201Cespecially those allied with Hashim Thaci.u201D[18]

The March 1999
NATO bombing of Kosovo was justified on the pretense of putting
an end to Serbian oppression of Kosovo Albanians, which was termed
genocide. The Clinton Administration made claims that at least 100,000
Kosovo Albanians were missing and u201Cmay have been killedu201D by the
Serbs. Bill Clinton personally compared events in Kosovo to the
Holocaust. The US State Department had stated that up to 500,000
Albanians were feared dead. Eventually, the official estimate was
reduced to 10,000, however, after exhaustive investigations, it
was revealed that the death of less than 2,500 Albanians could be
attributed to the Serbs. During the NATO bombing campaign, between
400 and 1,500 Serb civilians were killed, and NATO committed war
crimes, including the bombing of a Serb TV station and a hospital.[19]

In 2000, the
US State Department, in cooperation with the American Enterprise
Institute, AEI, held a conference on Euro-Atlantic integration in
Slovakia. Among the participants were many heads of state, foreign
affairs officials and ambassadors of various European states as
well as UN and NATO officials.[20] A letter of correspondence between
a German politician present at the meeting and the German Chancellor,
revealed the true nature of NATO's campaign in Kosovo. The conference
demanded a speedy declaration of independence for Kosovo, and that
the war in Yugoslavia was waged in order to enlarge NATO, Serbia
was to be excluded permanently from European development to justify
a US military presence in the region, and expansion was ultimately
designed to contain Russia.[21]

Of great significance
was that, u201Cthe war created a raison d’tre for the continued existence
of NATO in a post-Cold War world, as it desperately tried to justify
its continued existence and desire for expansion.u201D Further, u201CThe
Russians had assumed NATO would dissolve at the end of the Cold
War. Instead, not only has NATO expanded, it went to war over an
internal dispute in a Slavic Eastern European country.u201D This was
viewed as a great threat. Thus, u201Cmuch of the tense relations between
the United States and Russia over the past decade can be traced
to the 1999 war on Yugoslavia.u201D[22]

The
War on Terror and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

When Bill Clinton
became President, the neo-conservative hawks from the George H.W.
Bush administration formed a think tank called the Project for the
New American Century, or PNAC. In 2000, they published a report
called, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources
for a New Century. Building upon the Defense Policy Guidance document,
they state that, u201Cthe United States must retain sufficient forces
able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale
wars.u201D[23] Further, there is u201Cneed to retain sufficient combat forces
to fight and win, multiple, nearly simultaneous major theatre wars,u201D[24]
and that u201Cthe Pentagon needs to begin to calculate the force necessary
to protect, independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and
the Gulf at all times.u201D[25]

Interestingly,
the document stated that, u201Cthe United States has for decades sought
to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the
unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification,
the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends
the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.u201D[26] However, in advocating
for massive increases in defense spending and expanding the American
empire across the globe, including the forceful destruction of multiple
countries through major theatre wars, the report stated that, u201CFurther,
the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change,
is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing
event — like a new Pearl Harbor.u201D[27] That event came one year later
with the events of 9/11. Many of the authors of the report and members
of the Project for the New American Century had become officials
in the Bush administration, and were conveniently in place to enact
their u201CProjectu201D after they got their u201Cnew Pearl Harbor.u201D

The plans for
war were u201Calready under development by far right Think Tanks in
the 1990s, organisations in which cold-war warriors from the inner
circle of the secret services, from evangelical churches, from weapons
corporations and oil companies forged shocking plans for a new world
order.u201D To do this, u201Cthe USA would need to use all means –
diplomatic, economic and military, even wars of aggression –
to have long term control of the resources of the planet and the
ability to keep any possible rival weak.u201D

Among the people
involved in PNAC and the plans for empire, u201CDick Cheney – Vice
President, Lewis Libby – Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Donald Rumsfeld
– Defence Minister, Paul Wolfowitz – Rumsfeld’s deputy,
Peter Rodman – in charge of ‘Matters of Global Security’, John
Bolton – State Secretary for Arms Control, Richard Armitage
– Deputy Foreign Minister, Richard Perle – former Deputy
Defence Minister under Reagan, now head of the Defense Policy Board,
William Kristol – head of the PNAC and adviser to Bush, known
as the brains of the President, Zalmay Khalilzad,u201D who became Ambassador
to both Afghanistan and Iraq following the regime changes in those
countries.[28]

Brzezinski's
u201CGrand Chessboardu201D

Arch-hawk strategist,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with
David Rockefeller, former National Security Adviser and key foreign
policy architect in Jimmy Carter's administration, also wrote a
book on American geostrategy. Brzezinski is also a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group, and has also
been a board member of Amnesty International, the Atlantic Council
and the National Endowment for Democracy. Currently, he is a trustee
and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), a major US policy think tank.

In his 1997
book, The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski outlined a strategy
for America in the world. He wrote, u201CFor America, the chief geopolitical
prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs were dominated
by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for regional
domination and reached out for global power.u201D Further, u201Chow America
u2018manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent
and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would
control two of the world's three most advanced and economically
productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that
control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail African subordination.u201D[29]

He continued
in outlining a strategy for American empire, stating that, u201Cit is
imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating
Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of
a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore
the purpose of this book.u201D[30] He explained that, u201CTwo basic steps
are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic
Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important
shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher
the central external goals of their respective political elites
and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them: [and]
second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or
control the above.u201D[31]

What this means
is that is it of primary importance to first identify states that
could potentially be a pivot upon which the balance of power in
the region exits the US sphere of influence; and secondly, to u201Coffset,
co-opt, and/or controlu201D such states and circumstances. An example
of this would be Iran; being one of the world's largest oil producers,
and in a strategically significant position in the axis of Europe,
Asia and the Middle East. Iran could hold the potential to alter
the balance of power in Eurasia if it were to closely ally itself
with Russia or China, or both — giving those nations a heavy supply
of oil as well as a sphere of influence in the Gulf, thus challenging
American hegemony in the region.

Brzezinski
removed all subtlety from his imperial leanings, and wrote, u201CTo
put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age
of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy
are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among
the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep
the barbarians from coming together.u201D[32]

Brzezinski
referred to the Central Asian republics as the u201CEurasian Balkans,u201D
writing that, u201CMoreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are
of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions
to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors,
namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing
political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely
more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration
of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition
to important minerals, including gold.u201D[33] He further wrote that,
u201CIt follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that
no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that
the global community has unhindered financial and economic access
to it.u201D[34] This is a clear example of America's role as an engine
of empire; with foreign imperial policy designed to maintain US
strategic positions, but primarily and u201Cinfinitely more important,u201D
is to secure an u201Ceconomic prizeu201D for u201Cthe global community.u201D In
other words, the United States is an imperial hegemon working for
international financial interests.

Brzezinski
also warned that, u201Cthe United States may have to determine how to
cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia,
thereby threatening America’s status as a global power,u201D[35] and
he, u201Cputs a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent
the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek
to challenge America’s primacy.u201D Thus, u201CThe most immediate task
is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains
the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to
diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.u201D[36]

The
War on Terror and Surplus Imperialism

In 2000, the
Pentagon released a document called Joint Vision 2020, which outlined
a project to achieve what they termed, u201CFull Spectrum Dominance,u201D
as the blueprint for the Department of Defense in the future. u201CFull-spectrum
dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with
allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across
the range of military operations.u201D The report u201Caddresses full-spectrum
dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major
theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous
situations like peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief.u201D
Further, u201CThe development of a global information grid will provide
the environment for decision superiority.u201D[37]

As political
economist, Ellen Wood, explained, u201CBoundless domination of a global
economy, and of the multiple states that administer it, requires
military action without end, in purpose or time.u201D[38] Further, u201CImperial
dominance in a global capitalist economy requires a delicate and
contradictory balance between suppressing competition and maintaining
conditions in competing economies that generate markets and profit.
This is one of the most fundamental contradictions of the new world
order.u201D[39]

Following 9/11,
the u201CBush doctrineu201D was put in place, which called for u201Ca unilateral
and exclusive right to preemptive attack, any time, anywhere, unfettered
by any international agreements, to ensure that u2018[o]ur forces will
be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing
a military build-up in hope of surpassing, or equaling, the power
of the United States'.u201D[40]

NATO undertook
its first ground invasion of any nation in its entire history, with
the October 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The Afghan
war was in fact, planned prior to the events of 9/11, with the breakdown
of major pipeline deals between major western oil companies and
the Taliban. The war itself was planned over the summer of 2001
with the operational plan to go to war by mid-October.[41]

Afghanistan
is extremely significant in geopolitical terms, as, u201CTransporting
all the Caspian basin’s fossil fuel through Russia or Azerbaijan
would greatly enhance Russia’s political and economic control over
the central Asian republics, which is precisely what the west has
spent 10 years trying to prevent. Piping it through Iran would enrich
a regime which the US has been seeking to isolate. Sending it the
long way round through China, quite aside from the strategic considerations,
would be prohibitively expensive. But pipelines through Afghanistan
would allow the US both to pursue its aim of u2018diversifying energy
supply' and to penetrate the world’s most lucrative markets.u201D[42]

As the San
Francisco Chronicle pointed out a mere two weeks following the 9/11
attacks, u201CBeyond American determination to hit back against the
perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, beyond the likelihood of longer,
drawn-out battles producing more civilian casualties in the months
and years ahead, the hidden stakes in the war against terrorism
can be summed up in a single word: oil.u201D Explaining further, u201CThe
map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and
Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world’s
principal energy sources in the 21st century. The defense of these
energy resources – rather than a simple confrontation between
Islam and the West – will be the primary flash point of global
conflict for decades to come.u201D

Among the many
notable states where there is a crossover between terrorism and
oil and gas reserves of vital importance to the United States and
the West, are Saudi Arabia, Libya, Bahrain, the Gulf Emirates, Iran,
Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and Algeria, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,
Chechnya, Georgia and eastern Turkey. Importantly, u201Cthis region
accounts for more than 65 percent of the world’s oil and natural
gas production.u201D Further, u201CIt is inevitable that the war against
terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America’s Chevron,
ExxonMobil and Arco; France’s TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal
Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds
of billions of dollars of investment in the region.u201D[43]

It's no secret
that the Iraq war had much to do with oil. In the summer of 2001,
Dick Cheney convened an Energy Task Force, which was a highly secret
set of meetings in which energy policy was determined for the United
States. In the meetings and in various other means of communication,
Cheney and his aides met with top officials and executives of Shell
Oil, British Petroleum (BP), Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco, and Chevron.[44]
At the meeting, which took place before 9/11 and before there was
any mention of a war on Iraq, documents of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines,
refineries and terminals were presented and discussed, and u201CSaudi
Arabian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) documents likewise feature
a map of each country's oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker
terminals.u201D[45] Both Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum have
since received major oil contracts to develop Iraqi oilfields.[46]

The war on
Iraq, as well as the war on Afghanistan, also largely serve specifically
American, and more broadly, Western imperial-strategic interests
in the region. In particular, the wars were strategically designed
to eliminate, threaten or contain regional powers, as well as to
directly install several dozen military bases in the region, firmly
establishing an imperial presence. The purpose of this is largely
aimed at other major regional players and specifically, encircling
Russia and China and threatening their access to the region’s oil
and gas reserves. Iran is now surrounded, with Iraq on one side,
and Afghanistan on the other.

Concluding
Remarks

Part 1 of this
essay outlined the US-NATO imperial strategy for entering the New
World Order, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The primary aim was focused on encircling Russia and China and preventing
the rise of a new superpower. The US was to act as the imperial
hegemon, serving international financial interests in imposing the
New World Order. The next part to this essay examines the u201Ccolour
revolutionsu201D throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia, continuing
the US and NATO policy of containing Russia and China; while controlling
access to major natural gas reserves and transportation routes.
The u201Ccolour revolutionsu201D have been a pivotal force in geopolitical
imperial strategy, and analyzing them is key to understanding the
New World Order.

Endnotes

[1] Tyler,
Patrick E. U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop:
A One Superpower World. The New York Times: March 8, 1992. http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm

[2] Louis Sell,
Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. Duke University
Press, 2002: Page 28

Michel Chossudovsky,
Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Global Research: February 19, 2002: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=370

[3] Michel
Chossudovsky, Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Global Research: February 19, 2002: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=370

[4] David Binder,
Yugoslavia Seen Breaking Up Soon. The New York Times: November 28,
1990

[5] Ian Traynor,
Croat general on trial for war crimes. The Guardian: March 12, 2008:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/12/warcrimes.balkans

[6] Adam LeBor,
Croat general Ante Gotovina stands trial for war crimes. The Times
Online: March 11, 2008: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3522828.ece

[7] Brendan
O'Neill, ‘You are only allowed to see Bosnia in black and white’.
Spiked: January 23, 2004: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA374.htm

[8] Richard
J. Aldrich, America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims. The
Guardian: April 22, 2002: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/22/warcrimes.comment/print

[9] Tim Judah,
German spies accused of arming Bosnian Muslims. The Telegraph: April
20, 1997: http://www.serbianlinks.freehosting.net/german.htm

[10] Charlotte
Eagar, Invisible US Army defeats Serbs. The Observer: November 5,
1995: http://charlotte-eagar.com/stories/balkans110595.shtml

[11] Gary Wilson,
New reports show secret U.S. role in Balkan war. Workers World News
Service: 1996: http://www.workers.org/ww/1997/bosnia.html

[12] IAC, The
CIA Role in Bosnia. International Action Center: http://www.iacenter.org/bosnia/ciarole.htm

[13] History
Commons, Serbia and Montenegro: 1996-1999: Albanian Mafia and KLA
Take Control of Balkan Heroin Trafficking Route. The Center for
Cooperative Research: http://www.historycommons.org/topic.jsp?topic=country_serbia_and_montenegro

[14] History
Commons, Serbia and Montenegro: 1997: KLA Surfaces to Resist Serbian
Persecution of Albanians. The Center for Cooperative Research: http://www.historycommons.org/topic.jsp?topic=country_serbia_and_montenegro

[15] History
Commons, Serbia and Montenegro: February 1998: State Department
Removes KLA from Terrorism List. The Center for Cooperative Research:
http://www.historycommons.org/topic.jsp?topic=country_serbia_and_montenegro

[16] Marcia
Christoff Kurop, Al Qaeda’s Balkan Links. The Wall Street Journal:
November 1, 2001: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/561291/posts

[17] Global
Research, German Intelligence and the CIA supported Al Qaeda sponsored
Terrorists in Yugoslavia. Global Research: February 20, 2005: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=431

[18] Michel
Chossudovsky, Kosovo: The US and the EU support a Political Process
linked to Organized Crime. Global Research: February 12, 2008: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8055

[19] Andrew
Gavin Marshall, Breaking Yugoslavia. Geopolitical Monitor: July
21, 2008: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/content/backgrounders/2008-07-21/breaking-yugoslavia/

[20] AEI, Is
Euro-Atlantic Integration Still on Track? Participant List. American
Enterprise Institute: April 28-30, 2000: http://www.aei.org/research/nai/events/pageID.440,projectID.11/default.asp

[21] Aleksandar
Pavi, Correspondence between German Politicians Reveals the Hidden
Agenda behind Kosovo’s “Independence”. Global Research: March 12,
2008: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8304

[22] Stephen
Zunes, The War on Yugoslavia, 10 Years Later. Foreign Policy in
Focus: April 6, 2009: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6017

[23] PNAC,
Rebuilding America's Defenses. Project for the New American Century:
September 2000, page 6: http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

[24] Ibid.
Page 8

[25] Ibid.
Page 9

[26] Ibid.
Page 14

[27] Ibid.
Page 51

[28] Margo
Kingston, A think tank war: Why old Europe says no. The Sydney Morning
Herald: March 7, 2003: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826528748.html

[29] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Pages 30-31

[30] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page xiv

[31] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 41

[32] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 40

[33] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 124

[34] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 148

[35] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 55

[36] Brzezinski,
Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Basic Books, 1997: Page 198

[37] Jim Garamone,
Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance. American Forces
Press Service: June 2, 2000:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289

[38] Ellen
Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 144

[39] Ellen
Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 157

[40] Ellen
Wood, Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003: page 160

[41] Andrew
G. Marshall, Origins of Afghan War. Geopolitical Monitor: September
14, 2008:
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/content/backgrounders/2008-09-14/origins-of-the-afghan-war/

[42] George
Monbiot, America’s pipe dream. The Guardian: October 23, 2001:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/23/afghanistan.terrorism11

[43] Frank
Viviano, Energy future rides on U.S. war. San Francisco Chronicle:
September 26, 2001:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/26/MN70983.DTL

[44] Dana Milbank
and Justin Blum, Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force.
Washington Post: November 16, 2005:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842_pf.html

[45] Judicial
Watch, CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS.
Commerce Department: July 17, 2003: http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_iraqi-oilfield-pr.shtml

[46] TERRY
MACALISTER, Criticism as Shell signs $4bn Iraq oil deal. Mail and
Guardian: September 30, 2008: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-09-30-criticism-as-shell-signs-4bn-iraq-oil-deal

Al-Jazeera,
BP group wins Iraq oil contract. Al Jazeera Online: June 30, 2009:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200963093615637434.html

This originally
appeared on Global Research.

October
16, 2009

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.

War
Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength, and Debt Is
Recovery

In light of
the ever-present and unyieldingly persistent exclamations of “an
end” to the recession, a “solution” to the crisis,
and a “recovery” of the economy; we must remember that
we are being told this by the very same people and institutions
which told us, in years past, that there was “nothing to worry
about,” that “the fundamentals are fine,” and that
there was “no danger” of an economic crisis.

Why do we continue
to believe the same people that have, in both statements and choices,
been nothing but wrong? Who should we believe and turn to for more
accurate information and analysis? Perhaps a useful source would
be those at the epicenter of the crisis, in the heart of the shadowy
world of central banking, at the global banking regulator, and the
u201Cmost prestigious financial institution in the world,u201D which accurately
predicted the crisis thus far: The Bank for International Settlements
(BIS). This would be a good place to start.

The economic
crisis is anything but over, the u201Csolutionsu201D have been akin to putting
a band-aid on an amputated arm. The Bank for International Settlements
(BIS), the central bank to the world's central banks, has warned
and continues to warn against such misplaced hopes.

What
is the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)?

The BIS emerged
from the Young Committee set up in 1929, which was created to handle
the settlements of German reparations payments outlined in the Versailles
Treaty of 1919. The Committee was headed by Owen D. Young, President
and CEO of General Electric, co-author of the 1924 Dawes Plan, member
of the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation and was Deputy
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As the main American
delegate to the conference on German reparations, he was also accompanied
by J.P. Morgan, Jr.[1] What emerged was the Young Plan for German
reparations payments.

The Plan went
into effect in 1930, following the stock market crash. Part of the
Plan entailed the creation of an international settlement organization,
which was formed in 1930, and known as the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS). It was purportedly designed to facilitate and
coordinate the reparations payments of Weimar Germany to the Allied
powers. However, its secondary function, which is much more secretive,
and much more important, was to act as u201Ca coordinator of the operations
of central banks around the world.u201D Described as u201Ca bank for central
banks,u201D the BIS u201Cis a private institution with shareholders but
it does operations for public agencies. Such operations are kept
strictly confidential so that the public is usually unaware of most
of the BIS operations.u201D[2]

The BIS was
founded by u201Cthe central banks of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Japan, and the United Kingdom along with three
leading commercial banks from the United States, including J.P.
Morgan & Company, First National Bank of New York, and First
National Bank of Chicago. Each central bank subscribed to 16,000
shares and the three U.S. banks also subscribed to this same number
of shares.u201D However, u201COnly central banks have voting power.u201D[3]

Central bank
members have bi-monthly meetings at the BIS where they discuss a
variety of issues. It should be noted that most u201Cof the transactions
carried out by the BIS on behalf of central banks require the utmost
secrecy,u201D[4] which is likely why most people have not even heard
of it. The BIS can offer central banks u201Cconfidentiality and secrecy
which is higher than a triple-A rated bank.u201D[5]

The BIS was
established u201Cto remedy the decline of London as the world's financial
center by providing a mechanism by which a world with three chief
financial centers in London, New York, and Paris could still operate
as one.u201D[6] As Carroll Quigley explained:

[T]he powers
of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing
less than to create a world system of financial control in private
hands able to dominate the political system of each country and
the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled
in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting
in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private
meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the
Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private
bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were
themselves private corporations.[7]

The BIS, is,
without a doubt, the most important, powerful, and secretive financial
institution in the world. It's warnings should not be taken lightly,
as it would be the one institution in the world that would be privy
to such information more than any other.

Derivatives
Crisis Ahead

In September
of 2009, the BIS reported that, u201CThe global market for derivatives
rebounded to $426 trillion in the second quarter as risk appetite
returned, but the system remains unstable and prone to crises.u201D
The BIS quarterly report said that derivatives rose 16% u201Cmostly
due to a surge in futures and options contracts on three-month interest
rates.u201D The Chief Economist of the BIS warned that the derivatives
market poses u201Cmajor systemic risksu201D in the international financial
sector, and that, u201CThe danger is that regulators will again fail
to see that big institutions have taken far more exposure than they
can handle in shock conditions.u201D The economist added that, u201CThe
use of derivatives by hedge funds and the like can create large,
hidden exposures.u201D[8]

The day after
the report by the BIS was published, the former Chief Economist
of the BIS, William White, warned that, u201CThe world has not tackled
the problems at the heart of the economic downturn and is likely
to slip back into recession,u201D and he further u201Cwarned that government
actions to help the economy in the short run may be sowing the seeds
for future crises.u201D He was quoted as warning of entering a double-dip
recession, u201CAre we going into a W[-shaped recession]? Almost certainly.
Are we going into an L? I would not be in the slightest bit surprised.u201D
He added, u201CThe only thing that would really surprise me is a rapid
and sustainable recovery from the position we're in.u201D

An article
in the Financial Times explained that White's comments are
not to be taken lightly, as apart from heading the economic department
at the BIS from 1995 to 2008, he had, u201Crepeatedly warned of dangerous
imbalances in the global financial system as far back as 2003 and
— breaking a great taboo in central banking circles at the time
— he dared to challenge Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal
Reserve, over his policy of persistent cheap money.u201D

The Financial
Times continued:

Worldwide,
central banks have pumped thousands of billions of dollars of
new money into the financial system over the past two years in
an effort to prevent a depression. Meanwhile, governments have
gone to similar extremes, taking on vast sums of debt to prop
up industries from banking to car making.

White warned
that, u201CThese measures may already be inflating a bubble in asset
prices, from equities to commodities,u201D and that, u201Cthere was a small
risk that inflation would get out of control over the medium term.u201D
In a speech given in Hong Kong, White explained that, u201Cthe underlying
problems in the global economy, such as unsustainable trade imbalances
between the US, Europe and Asia, had not been resolved.u201D[9]

On September
20, 2009, the Financial Times reported that the BIS, u201Cthe
head of the body that oversees global banking regulation,u201D while
at the G20 meeting, u201Cissued a stern warning that the world cannot
afford to slip into a u2018complacent' assumption that the financial
sector has rebounded for good,u201D and that, u201CJaime Caruana, general
manager of the Bank for International Settlements and a former governor
of Spain's central bank, said the market rebound should not be misinterpreted.u201D[10]

This follows
warnings from the BIS over the summer of 2009, regarding misplaced
hope over the stimulus packages organized by various governments
around the world. In late June, the BIS warned that, u201Cfiscal stimulus
packages may provide no more than a temporary boost to growth, and
be followed by an extended period of economic stagnation.u201D

An article
in The Australian reported that, u201CThe only international
body to correctly predict the financial crisis … has warned the
biggest risk is that governments might be forced by world bond investors
to abandon their stimulus packages, and instead slash spending while
lifting taxes and interest rates,u201D as the annual report of the BIS
u201Chas for the past three years been warning of the dangers of a repeat
of the depression.u201D Further, u201CIts latest annual report warned that
countries such as Australia faced the possibility of a run on the
currency, which would force interest rates to rise.u201D The BIS warned
that, u201Ca temporary respite may make it more difficult for authorities
to take the actions that are necessary, if unpopular, to restore
the health of the financial system, and may thus ultimately prolong
the period of slow growth.u201D

Further, u201CAt
the same time, government guarantees and asset insurance have exposed
taxpayers to potentially large losses,u201D and explaining how fiscal
packages posed significant risks, it said that, u201CThere is a danger
that fiscal policy-makers will exhaust their debt capacity before
finishing the costly job of repairing the financial system,u201D and
that, u201CThere is the definite possibility that stimulus programs
will drive up real interest rates and inflation expectations.u201D Inflation
u201Cwould intensify as the downturn abated,u201D and the BIS u201Cexpressed
doubt about the bank rescue package adopted in the US.u201D[11]

The BIS further
warned of inflation, saying that, u201CThe big and justifiable worry
is that, before it can be reversed, the dramatic easing in monetary
policy will translate into growth in the broader monetary and credit
aggregates.u201D That will u201Clead to inflation that feeds inflation expectations
or it may fuel yet another asset-price bubble, sowing the seeds
of the next financial boom-bust cycle.u201D[12] With the latest report
on the derivatives bubble being created, it has become painfully
clear that this is exactly what has happened: the creation of another
asset-price bubble. The problem with bubbles is that they burst.

The Financial
Times reported that William White, former Chief Economist at the
BIS, also u201Cargued that after two years of government support for
the financial system, we now have a set of banks that are even bigger – and more dangerous – than ever before,u201D which also, u201Chas been
argued by Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International
Monetary Fund,u201D who u201Csays that the finance industry has in effect
captured the US government,u201D and pointedly stated: u201Crecovery
will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking
essential reform.u201D[13] [Emphasis added].

At the beginning
of September 2009, central bankers met at the BIS, and it was reported
that, u201Cthey had agreed on a package of measures to strengthen the
regulation and supervision of the banking industry in the wake of
the financial crisis,u201D and the chief of the European Central Bank
was quoted as saying, u201CThe agreements reached today among 27 major
countries of the world are essential as they set the new standards
for banking regulation and supervision at the global level.u201D[14]

Among the agreed
measures, u201Clenders should raise the quality of their capital by
including more stock,u201D and u201CBanks will also have to raise the amount
and quality of the assets they keep in reserve and curb leverage.u201D
One of the key decisions made at the Basel conference, which is
named after the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, set up under
the BIS, was that, u201Cbanks will need to raise the quality of their
so-called Tier 1 capital base, which measures a bank's ability to
absorb sudden losses,u201D meaning that, u201CThe majority of such reserves
should be common shares and retained earnings and the holdings will
be fully disclosed.u201D[15]

In mid-September,
the BIS said that, u201CCentral banks must coordinate global supervision
of derivatives clearinghouses and consider offering them access
to emergency funds to limit systemic risk.u201D In other words, u201CRegulators
are pushing for much of the $592 trillion market in over-the-counter
derivatives trades to be moved to clearinghouses which act as the
buyer to every seller and seller to every buyer, reducing the risk
to the financial system from defaults.u201D The report released by the
BIS asked if clearing houses u201Cshould have access to central bank
credit facilities and, if so, when?u201D[16]

A Coming
Crisis

The derivatives
market represents a massive threat to the stability of the global
economy. However, it is one among many threats, all of which are
related and intertwined; one will set off another. The big elephant
in the room is the major financial bubble created from the bailouts
and u201Cstimulusu201D packages worldwide. This money has been used by major
banks to consolidate the economy; buying up smaller banks and absorbing
the real economy; productive industry. The money has also gone into
speculation, feeding the derivatives bubble and leading to a rise
in stock markets, a completely illusory and manufactured occurrence.
The bailouts have, in effect, fed the derivatives bubble to dangerous
new levels as well as inflating the stock market to an unsustainable
position.

However, a
massive threat looms in the cost of the bailouts and so-called u201Cstimulusu201D
packages. The economic crisis was created as a result of low interest
rates and easy money: high-risk loans were being made, money was
invested in anything and everything, the housing market inflated,
the commercial real estate market inflated, derivatives trade soared
to the hundreds of trillions per year, speculation ran rampant and
dominated the global financial system. Hedge funds were the willing
facilitators of the derivatives trade, and the large banks were
the major participants and holders.

At the same
time, governments spent money loosely, specifically the United States,
paying for multi-trillion dollar wars and defense budgets, printing
money out of thin air, courtesy of the global central banking system.
All the money that was produced, in turn, produced debt. By 2007,
the total debt — domestic, commercial and consumer debt — of the
United States stood at a shocking $51 trillion.[17]

As if this
debt burden was not enough, considering it would be impossible to
ever pay back, the past two years has seen the most expansive and
rapid debt expansion ever seen in world history — in the form of
stimulus and bailout packages around the world. In July of 2009,
it was reported that, u201CU.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as
much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial
companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the
Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.u201D[18]

Bilderberg
Plan in Action?

In May of 2009,
I wrote an article covering the Bilderberg meeting of 2009, a highly
secretive meeting of major elites from Europe and North America,
who meet once a year behind closed doors. Bilderberg acts as an
informal international think tank, and they do not release any information,
so reports from the meetings are leaked and the sources cannot be
verified. However, the information provided by Bilderberg trackers
and journalists Daniel Estulin and Jim Tucker have proven surprisingly
accurate in the past.

In May, the
information that leaked from the meetings regarded the main topic
of conversation being, unsurprisingly, the economic crisis. The
big question was to undertake u201CEither a prolonged, agonizing depression
that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty
… or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for
a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but
more efficiency.u201D

Important to
note, was that one major point on the agenda was to u201Ccontinue to
deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about
the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up
for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead.u201D

Estulin reported
on a leaked report he claimed to have received following the meeting,
which reported that there were large disagreements among the participants,
as u201CThe hardliners are for dramatic decline and a severe, short-term
depression, but there are those who think that things have gone
too far and that the fallout from the global economic cataclysm
cannot be accurately calculated.u201D However, the consensus view was
that the recession would get worse, and that recovery would be u201Crelatively
slow and protracted,u201D and to look for these terms in the press over
the next weeks and months. Sure enough, these terms have appeared
ad infinitum in the global media.

Estulin further
reported, u201Cthat some leading European bankers faced with the specter
of their own financial mortality are extremely concerned, calling
this high-wire act u2018unsustainable,' and saying that US budget and
trade deficits could result in the demise of the dollar.u201D One Bilderberger
said that, u201Cthe banks themselves don’t know the answer to when (the
bottom will be hit).u201D Everyone appeared to agree, u201Cthat the level
of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher
than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.u201D
Further, u201Csomeone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on
historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the
way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover
with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.u201D One
attendee stated that, u201CEquity losses in 2008 were worse than those
of 1929,u201D and that, u201CThe next phase of the economic decline will
also be worse than the ’30s, mostly because the US economy carries
about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated,
the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.u201D[19]

Could the general
perception of an economy in recovery be the manifestation of the
Bilderberg plan in action? Well, to provide insight into attempting
to answer that question, we must review who some of the key participants
at the conference were.

Central
Bankers

Many central
bankers were present, as per usual. Among them, were the Governor
of the National Bank of Greece, Governor of the Bank of Italy, President
of the European Investment Bank; James Wolfensohn, former President
of the World Bank; Nout Wellink, President of the Central Bank of
the Netherlands and is on the board of the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS); Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European
Central Bank was also present; the Vice Governor of the National
Bank of Belgium; and a member of the Board of the Executive Directors
of the Central Bank of Austria.

Finance
Ministers and Media

Finance Ministers
and officials also attended from many different countries. Among
the countries with representatives present from the financial department
were Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and
Spain. There were also many representatives present from major media
enterprises around the world. These include the publisher and editor
of Der Standard in Austria; the Chairman and CEO of the Washington
Post Company; the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist; the
Deputy Editor of Die Zeit in Germany; the CEO and Editor-in-Chief
of Le Nouvel Observateur in France; the Associate Editor
and Chief Economics Commentator of the Financial Times; as
well as the Business Correspondent and the Business Editor of The
Economist. So, these are some of the major financial publications
in the world present at this meeting. Naturally, they have a large
influence on public perceptions of the economy.

Bankers

Also of importance
to note is the attendance of private bankers at the meeting, for
it is the major international banks that own the shares of the world's
central banks, which in turn, control the shares of the Bank for
International Settlements (BIS). Among the banks and financial companies
represented at the meeting were Deutsche Bank AG, ING, Lazard Freres
& Co., Morgan Stanley International, Goldman Sachs, Royal Bank
of Scotland, and of importance to note is David Rockefeller,[20]
former Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan (now J.P. Morgan Chase),
who can arguably be referred to as the current reigning “King
of Capitalism.”

The
Obama Administration

Heavy representation
at the Bilderberg meeting also came from members of the Obama administration
who are tasked with resolving the economic crisis. Among them were
Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary and former President
of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Lawrence Summers, Director
of the White House’s National Economic Council, former Treasury
Secretary in the Clinton administration, former President of Harvard
University, and former Chief Economist of the World Bank; Paul Volcker,
former Governor of the Federal Reserve System and Chair of Obama's
Economic Recovery Advisory Board; Robert Zoellick, former Chairman
of Goldman Sachs and current President of the World Bank.[21]

Unconfirmed
were reports of the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke being present. However,
if the history and precedent of Bilderberg meetings is anything
to go by, both the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the President
of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are always present, so it
would indeed be surprising if they were not present at the 2009
meeting. I contacted the New York Fed to ask if the President attended
any organization or group meetings in Greece over the scheduled
dates that Bilderberg met, and the response told me to ask the particular
organization for a list of attendees. While not confirming his presence,
they also did not deny it. However, it is still unverified.

Naturally,
all of these key players wield enough influence to alter public
opinion and perception of the economic crisis. They also have the
most to gain from it. However, whatever image they construct, it
remains just that; an image. The illusion will tear apart soon enough,
and the world will come to realize that the crisis we have gone
through thus far is merely the introductory chapter to the economic
crisis as it will be written in history books.

Conclusion

The warnings
from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its former
Chief Economist, William White, must not be taken lightly. Both
the warnings of the BIS and William White in the past have gone
unheralded and have been proven accurate with time. Do not allow
the media-driven hope of “economic recovery” to sideline
the “economic reality.” Though it can be depressing to
acknowledge, it is a far greater thing to be aware of the ground
on which you tread, even if it is strewn with dangers, than to be
ignorant and run recklessly through a minefield. Ignorance is not
bliss; ignorance is delayed catastrophe.

A doctor must
first properly identify and diagnose the problem before he can offer
any sort of prescription as a solution. If the diagnosis is inaccurate,
the prescription won't work, and could in fact, make things worse.
The global economy has a large cancer in it: it has been properly
diagnosed by some, yet the prescription it was given was to cure
a cough. The economic tumor has been identified; the question is:
do we accept this and try to address it, or do we pretend that the
cough prescription will cure it? What do you think gives a stronger
chance of survival? Now try accepting the idea that “ignorance
is bliss.”

As Gandhi said,
u201CThere is no god higher than truth.u201D

Endnotes

[1] Time, HEROES:
Man-of-the-Year. Time Magazine: Jan 6, 1930: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,738364-1,00.html

[2] James Calvin
Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: evolution and evaluation.
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002: page 2

[3] James Calvin
Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: evolution and evaluation.
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002: page 6

[4] James Calvin
Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: evolution and evaluation.
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002: page 148

[5] James Calvin
Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: evolution and evaluation.
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002: page 149

[6] Carroll
Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New
York: Macmillan Company, 1966), 324-325

[7] Carroll
Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New
York: Macmillan Company, 1966), 324

[8] Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard, Derivatives still pose huge risk, says BIS. The
Telegraph: September 13, 2009: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6184496/Derivatives-still-pose-huge-risk-says-BIS.html

[9] Robert
Cookson and Sundeep Tucker, Economist warns of double-dip recession.
The Financial Times: September 14, 2009: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e6dd31f0-a133-11de-a88d-00144feabdc0.html

[10] Patrick
Jenkins, BIS head worried by complacency. The Financial Times: September
20, 2009: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a7a04972-a60c-11de-8c92-00144feabdc0.html

[11] David
Uren. Bank for International Settlements warning over stimulus benefits.
The Australian: June 30, 2009:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25710566-601,00.html

[12] Simone
Meier, BIS Sees Risk Central Banks Will Raise Interest Rates Too
Late. Bloomberg: June 29, 2009:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aOnSy9jXFKaY

[13] Robert
Cookson and Victor Mallet, Societal soul-searching casts shadow
over big banks. The Financial Times: September 18, 2009: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7721033c-a3ea-11de-9fed-00144feabdc0.html

[14] AFP, Top
central banks agree to tougher bank regulation: BIS. AFP: September
6, 2009: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h8G0ShkY-AdH3TNzKJEetGuScPiQ

[15] Simon
Kennedy, Basel Group Agrees on Bank Standards to Avoid Repeat of
Crisis. Bloomberg: September 7, 2009: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aETt8NZiLP38

[16] Abigail
Moses, Central Banks Must Agree Global Clearing Supervision, BIS
Says. Bloomberg: September 14, 2009: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5C6ARW_tSW0

[17] FIABIC,
US home prices the most vital indicator for turnaround. FIABIC Asia
Pacific: January 19, 2009: http://www.fiabci-asiapacific.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=133&Itemid=41

Alexander Green,
The National Debt: The Biggest Threat to Your Financial Future.
Investment U: August 25, 2008: http://www.investmentu.com/IUEL/2008/August/the-national-debt.html

John Bellamy
Foster and Fred Magdoff, Financial Implosion and Stagnation. Global
Research: May 20, 2009: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13692

[18] Dawn Kopecki
and Catherine Dodge, U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky
Says (Update3). Bloomberg: July 20, 2009: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM

[19] Andrew
Gavin Marshall, The Bilderberg Plan for 2009: Remaking the Global
Political Economy. Global Research: May 26, 2009: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=13738&context=va

[20] Maja Banck-Polderman,
Official List of Participants for the 2009 Bilderberg Meeting. Public
Intelligence: July 26, 2009: http://www.publicintelligence.net/official-list-of-participants-for-the-2009-bilderberg-meeting/

[21] Andrew
Gavin Marshall, The Bilderberg Plan for 2009: Remaking the Global
Political Economy. Global Research: May 26, 2009: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=13738&context=va

This originally
appeared on Global Research.

October
5, 2009

Andrew Gavin
Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy
and History at Simon Fraser University.