Emily W. Blair
Cheney Hawks "Highjack Policy"
Fri Nov 7 17:50:48 2003
64.140.158.231


Former Pentagon Officer Confirms Cheney Hawks "Highjack Policy"
Emily W. Blair

The unconscionable highjacking of our foreign policy, by neo-con, neo-fascist, "arm-chair" chicken-hawks, has occurred here in the U.S.A., and Bush is too ignorant and too weak, to put a stop to this crime. We are entering unchartered waters, in a phase of our history, where the 228 year old tradition of democracy is coming to an end, and a frightening new era of tyranny begins ... Bush has created a "Titanic 'Ship of Fools' War-Machine" that is destined to hit even rougher waters, and will result in a tragedy of enormous proportions.

"We the People" must fight this un-democratic coup d'etat and neo-nazi phenomena, before the tragic massacre of innocent human beings on a massive scale (exceeding the15 ,000+ already slaughtered by the Bush Regime in Iraq) occurs in the Middle East. A potential Middle East holocaust could very soon take place, in our name, on a scale not seen since WW2.

Bush and his corrupt cabal of thugs lack the moral fortitude and the intellectual capacity to broker a sound Middle East peace agreement. Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is dictating the U.S. foreign policy, egged-on by the American neo-cons' lust for war, and the results will prove catastrophic for Israel in the longer term, the U.S.A., the Middle East, and the entire planet-- as a new21 st century holocaust will prove a blight on all of humanity.

Contact Congress on http://www.congress.org , and demand an investigation into the Bush Regime's Crimes Against Humanity.

In "Cheney's hawks 'hijacking policy'" on http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/29/1067233251576.html :

"A former Pentagon officer turned whistleblower says a group of hawks in the Bush Administration, including the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, is running a shadow foreign policy, contravening Washington's official line.

"What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra [a Reagan administration national security scandal] look like amateur hour. . . it's worse than Iran-Contra, worse than what happened in Vietnam," said Karen Kwiatkowski, a former air force lieutenant-colonel.

"[President] George Bush isn't in control . . . the country's been hijacked," she said, describing how "key [governmental] areas of neoconservative concern were politically staffed".

Ms Kwiatkowski, who retired this year after 20 years service, was a Middle East specialist in the office of the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, headed by Douglas Feith.

She described "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress", adding that "in order to take that first step - Iraq - lies had to be told to Congress to bring them on board".

Ms Kwiatkowski said the pursuit of national security decisions often bypassed "civil service and active-duty military professionals", and was handled instead by political appointees who shared common ideological ties.

There was speculation earlier this year that such an ideologue group had emerged, and that it was behind the US attack on an Iraqi convoy in Syria in June.

The New York Times quoted Patrick Lang, a former senior Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) official, as saying that many in the Government believed the incursion was an effort by ideologues to disrupt co-operation between the US and Syria.

Ms Kwiatkowski said there was an extra-governmental network operating outside normal structures and practices, "a network of political appointees in key positions who felt they needed to take some action, to make things happen in a foreign affairs, national security way". She said Pentagon personnel and the DIA were pressured to favourably alter assessments and reports.

In a separate interview, Chalmers Johnson, an authority on US policy, said that the Administration's neo-conservatives had in effect seized power from Mr Bush.

Dr Johnson said the neo-conservatives had pursued an agenda outlined in the controversial 1992 Defence Planning Guidance. That document, drawn up at the direction of Mr Cheney when he was defence secretary, said the world's only superpower should not be cautious about asserting its power."

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Dick Cheney, Commander in Chief
Muslim American Society, United States - Nov 2, 2003
... According to retired intelligence officers, Cheney and Libby played the decisive
role ... include questionable evidence supplied by the INC and Rumsfeld-led hawks. ...
http://www.masnet.org/articleinterest.asp?id=633

The Revolution Was Not Televised
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
http://www.opednews.com/pitt1103_Revolution.htm

There was a large anti-war rally in Washington last week. The standard slogans were on display for all to see: Impeach Bush, Bring The Troops Home, No Blood For Oil. On the periphery of the protest stood a few dozen 'patriots' holding a counter-demonstration in support of Bush and the Iraq war. Among the signs carried by this crew was a banner that succinctly summed up the madness of the age, and the dangerous nature of the current ruling class.

Across the top of the banner, which was clearly professionally made and not hand-lettered, were the block-letter words "SUPPORT PRESIDENT BUSH." Through the center of the banner were black outlines of a fighter aircraft, a tank, an M-16 rifle, a .45 caliber pistol, an attack helicopter, a surface-to-air missile battery, and a thermonuclear bomb. Underneath these images were two more block-letter words: "TRUST JESUS."

The sentiment apparently finds resonance with Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. The Wednesday edition of The Hill carried a story about GOP concerns over the manner in which the post-war war is unfolding. The trepidation is understandable; more American troops have been killed in the 'Mission Accomplished' phase of the war than in the war itself. Lott responded to the crisis in Iraq by saying, "If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens."

The Bush administration has tried to frame their wars as not being a religiously-based crusade against the Islamic world. This has been a hard-sell with Muslims, especially since Bush used the word "crusade" immediately after September 11. Norman Podhoretz, one of the ideological fathers of the cadre of hawks currently running our foreign policy, publicly described our conflict in the Mideast as being a process aimed at bringing about "the reformation and modernization of Islam." The religious overtones are difficult to miss.

Perhaps the best example of where we stand today comes in the guise of Lt. General William Boykin, deputy undersecretary for defense, who is charged with finding important enemies like Osama bin Laden. Boykin, when not smoking 'em out of their holes, has been touring the fundamentalist pulpits across the America. Describing the hunt for a Somali warlord last January, Boykin said, "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

Boykin has held forth on the true meaning of the War on Terror. "Satan wants to destroy this nation," says Boykin, "he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." In June of 2002, Boykin held up a photograph of Mogadishu to a church congregation. The photo carried the image of a dark spot in the sky above the city. "Ladies and gentlemen," Boykin said, "this is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."

The banner carried by the 'patriot' in Washington should have had the black outline of an oil well alongside all those weapons. Trusting Jesus has been a lucrative business for some. The Center for Public Integrity released a report on Thursday which details how $8 billion in contracts to 'rebuild' Iraq and Afghanistan have gone exclusively to companies which donated piles of money to Bush's 2000 election campaign. These contracts were awarded without the usual bidding process; few beyond the friends of Bush were given the opportunity to cash in on the war.

Most prominent on the list of companies awarded these contacts is Halliburton, the oil company recently run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton subsidiary, Kellog Brown & Root, has gathered to itself a tidy $2.3 billion contract to repair Iraq's oil industry. The price tag for this project was doubled recently by the Bush administration so Halliburton could get a larger share of the $87 billion allocated for Iraq. The reason for the doubling? Halliburton plans to go beyond repairing old oil wells and develop new wells to tap virgin supplies of oil and gas.

Islam is not the only religion to have a militant, fundamentalist Taliban wing making up part of the whole. In America, the Taliban wing of Christianity has assumed power. The banner at that 'patriot' rally captures the essence of these frightening extremists: Supporting Bush is placed on the same level as worshipping Jesus, and shot through the middle is the steel fist of weapons and war. September 11 has been refashioned by the Christian Taliban as a rallying cry for an end-times death match against Islam, a rallying cry that obscures the orgasm of profiteering that is taking place behind the scenes.

There has been a religiously fundamentalist revolution in the United States. The extremists have taken control of the White House, Congress, the courts, and the military. You did not see this on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC or Fox, but it happened all the same.

This article was originally published in www.truthout.org

U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls of Postwar Reconstruction Center for Public Integrity http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/

Photograph provided by prolesunited:
http://homepage.mac.com/prolesunited/PhotoAlbum51.html


William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books.

• It's Time to Wake Up, America: — I C H, Fri Nov 7 17:56