Axis of Evil in Need of Revision

[Ivo Skoric]

Although the war with Iraq did not yet officially start, and Bush 
pledged that it is going to consult the Congress and the UN before 
starting it, the war with Iraq already is the first news item on CNN. 
It is as if media re hungry for that war. They don't want to wait for 
Congress, Security Council or George Bush to make up their 
minds. They need that war. And we are going to watch that war, 
regardless of whether it is happening or not.

After all, the war against Iraq never ended. Iraq is intermittently 
bombed for past ten years by the U.S. and the U.K. that patrol its 
skies. The air war against Iraq was never called off. The U.S. can 
just step it up to move it up on the scale of news-worthiness, 
without actually committing any more troops or resources. Even if 
there is no war, we shall watch it on TV.

The same as we did watch the "terror attack" on Miami on 
September 13. 
(http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4071560.htm)
•  Several stations reported that a woman in Georgia told police 
three Middle Easterners were coming to Miami to blow something 
up. (That's not what she said.)
• Several also said cops spotted the men after they roared past a 
tollbooth on I-75. (One car rolled by at a normal rate of speed; the 
other stopped and paid the tolls for both.)
• The cops used explosives to detonate a suspicious knapsack 
found in one car. (They didn't.) Channel 7 reported that explosive 
''triggers'' were found in one of the cars. (There were no ''triggers'' or 
anything else to do with explosives.)
• Channel 7 also reported that cops were searching for a third car. 
(They weren't.)
• CNN's Paula Zahn speculated, without a jot or tittle of evidence, 
that the three men were coming to Florida to blow up the Turkey 
Point nuclear reactor.

While Thomas Friedman keeps writing his fairy tales in the Op-Ed 
section of The New York Times (9/15/02) - "what gives America its 
unprecedented power and influence today is the fact that, more 
than at any time in history, the world has come to accept the 
Western values of peace, democracy and free markets — around 
which American society is organized. That is the truly significant 
trend in the world today" - this nation is preparing itself for war 
more along a secret blueprint for US global domination, entitled 
Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources 
For A New Century, written in September 2000 by the neo-
conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century 
(PNAC), planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime 
change' even before Bush took power in January 2001, as revealed 
by The Sunday Herald on 9/15/02.

PNAC stands for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald 
Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), 
George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's 
chief of staff).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of 
the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It 
says: 'The 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.'

This is understandable - given that 2/3 of Saudi Arabian population 
is younger than 19, the bloody end of Saudi royals and their feudal 
society is completely foreseeable in the next decade. Naturally, 
the U.S. wants to secure a 'friendly regime' in control of the 
precious liquid that moves U.S. SUV-s slowly along six-lane 
highways. 

The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global 
US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and 
shaping the international security order in line with American 
principles and interests'.

This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the 
future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight 
and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 
'core mission'.

The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry 
on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an 
earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US 
must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our 
leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.

The PNAC blueprint makes no mention of "Western values of 
peace, democracy and free markets."

While the U.S. was preparing for war and domination in Middle 
East, yesterday, North Korea, a prominent member of the 'axis of 
evil' club of nations, moved closer towards the "Western value of 
peace," and this development happened without a trace of 
presence of the unprecedented peace-loving super-power. First 
time after the end of Korean war, families from the North and South 
were able to meet, and the U.S. cannot take credit for that. Ouch!

What is going to happen now that military cadres from the North 
and South shaked hands and smiled widely for the CNN camera 
crew? Is North Korea going to be dropped from the 'axis of evil' list? 
Or is South Korea going to be included on the same list? Is this 
going to be considered a development towards the peace between 
the two countries - or, because it happened without an American 
hand, is this going to be considered as a dangerous conspiracy 
against the U.S. global dominance?

And, what is to happen with the landmines that separate North 
from South? Those were the principal reason for the U.S. to refuse 
to sign yet another international treaty - that banning the use of 
landmines. Now, that North and South are moving towards peace, 
they won't need landmines between them, they are going to need a 
railroad between them. And if those landmines are removed, is the 
U.S. going to sign the landmines ban treaty, or is the Bush 
administration going to come up with some other clever excuse?

And what I wonder even more is - would Thomas Friedman defend 
that excuse as being thoroughly consistent with the "Western 
values of peace, democracy and free markets"?

ivo