In the time period of Garrett we were relatively self suffcient for energy and the global trade we have now did not exist. The only threat we had was from the Soviet block, there was no such thing as terrorists.
Don't know if this has been posted. Bush's Mideast plan: Conquer and divide By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor NEW YORK -- Arms inspections are a "hoax," said Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, in a forthright and chilling interview with ABC News last week. "War is inevitable." Aziz is the smartest, most credible member of President Saddam Hussein's otherwise sinister regime - my view after covering Iraq since 1976. What the U.S. wants is not "regime change" in Iraq but rather "region change," charged Aziz. He tersely summed up the Bush administration's reasons for war against Iraq: "Oil and Israel." Aziz's undiplomatic language underlines growing fears across the Mideast that U.S. President George Bush intends to use a manufactured war against Iraq to redraw the political map of the region, put it under permanent U.S. military control, and seize its vast oil resources. These are not idle alarms. Senior administration officials openly speak of invading Iran, Syria, Libya and Lebanon. Influential neo-conservative think-tanks in Washington have deployed a small army of "experts" on TV, urging the U.S. to remove governments deemed unfriendly to the U.S. and Israel. Washington's most powerful lobbies - for oil and Israel - are urging the U.S. to seize Mideast oil and crush any regional states that might one day challenge Israel's nuclear monopoly or regional dominance. The radical transformation of the Mideast being considered by the Bush administration is potentially the biggest political change since the notorious 1916 Sykes-Picot Treaty in which victorious Britain and France carved up the Ottoman-ruled region. Possible scenarios under review at the highest levels: Iraq is to be placed under U.S. military rule. Iraq's leadership, notably Saddam Hussein and Aziz, will face U.S. drumhead courts martial and firing squads. Iraq will be broken up into three semi-autonomous regions: Kurdish north; Sunni centre; Shia south. Iraq's oil will be exploited by U.S. and British firms. Iraq will become a major customer for U.S. arms. Turkey may get a slice of northern Iraq around the Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields. U.S. forces will repress any attempts by Kurds to set up an independent state. A military dictatorship or kingdom will eventually be created. The swift, ruthless crushing of Iraq is expected to terrify Arab states, Palestinians and Iran into obeying U.S. political dictates. Independent-minded Syria will be ordered to cease support for Lebanon's Hezbollah, and allow Israel to dominate Jordan and Lebanon, or face invasion and "regime change." The U.S. will anyway undermine the ruling Ba'ath regime and young leader, Bashir Assad, replacing him with a French-based exile regime. France will get renewed influence in Syria as a consolation prize for losing out in Iraq to the Americans and Brits. Historical note: in 1949, the U.S. staged its first coup in Syria, using Gen. Husni Zai'im to overthrow a civilian government. Iran a principal foe Iran will be severely pressured to dismantle its nuclear and missile programs or face attack by U.S. forces. Israel's rightist Likud party, which guides much of the Bush administration's Mideast thinking, sees Iran, not demolished Iraq, as its principal foe and threat, and is pressing Washington to attack Iran once Iraq is finished off. At minimum, the U.S. will encourage an uprising against Iran's Islamic regime, replacing it with either a royalist government or one drawn from U.S.-based Iranian exiles. Saudi Arabia will be allowed to keep the royal family in power, but compelled to become more responsive to U.S. demands and to clamp down on its increasingly anti-American population. If this fails, the CIA is reportedly cultivating senior Saudi air force officers who could overthrow the royal family and bring in a compliant military regime like that of Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Or, partition Saudi Arabia, making the oil-rich eastern portion an American protectorate. The most important Arab nation, Egypt - with 40% of all Arabs - will remain a bastion of U.S. influence. The U.S. controls 50% of Egypt's food supply, 85% of its arms and spare parts, and keeps the military regime of Gen. Hosni Mubarak in power. Once leader of the Arab world, Egypt is keeping a very low profile in the Iraq crisis, meekly co-operating with American war plans. Jordan is a U.S.-Israeli protectorate and its royal family, the Hashemites, are being considered as possible figurehead rulers of U.S.-occupied "liberated" Iraq; more remotely, for Saudi Arabia and/or Syria. The Gulf Emirates and Oman, former British protectorates and now American protectorates, are already, in effect, tiny colonies. In Libya, madcap Col. Moammar Khadafy remains on Washington's black list and is marked for extinction once bigger game is bagged. The U.S. wants Libya's high-quality oil. Britain may reassert its former influence here. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, short of revolution, will remain loyal western satraps under highly repressive, French-backed royalist and military regimes. Yemen's former British imperial base at Aden and former French base at Djibouti will become important permanent U.S. bases. The White House hopes Palestinians will be cowed by Iraq's destruction, and forced to accept U.S.-Israeli plans to become a self-governing, but isolated, native reservation surrounded by Israeli forces. The lines drawn in the Mideast by old European imperial powers are now to be redrawn by the world's newest imperial power, the United States. But as veteran soldiers know, even the best strategic plans become worthless once real fighting begins. MORE STORIES AND EDITORIALS ON THE WAR, ECONOMY AND OUR SOCIETY, WHICH ARE NOT CARRIED ON MAIN-STREAM MEDIA, CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.QUASIMODOS.COM giving you some ammo..you know.... cut and paste only
The article was in print on Dec. 8, 2002, a fact you conveniently have left out, and has already been thoroughly debunked. Aziz is the biggest liar (as well as one of the best liars) in the Iraqi regime.
max401 like clockwork!!! are you assigned to me? debunked? where? by whom? how???? ok ok ok your sources --what sources??-- are better than everyone else ahahahahaha -----waiting now for the keymar the crapola fye to start his rhetoric any minute now enjoy
Please, you do know what an "email alert" is? And gee whiz, I happen to be sitting here on-line. Debunked? Surely you don't really believe that the current admin is going to take out all those countries as Aziz claims, do you? And in less than three years? Do you think Bush can get relected if word got out? Sheeesh!
RE; Eric Margolis. I have listened to Mr. Margolis rambling on quiet a bit. I think his take over of Iraq and Middle East is just wishful thinking on his part. Unfortunately people in high places listen to him and others like him thinking they really know their stuff on middle east. If this is really the plan for that part of the world I can't see personal safety in the future for any American.
Simple logic would dictate that it is indeed not the "plan." What do you think will happen in the next election if it is? "Regime change," to use a current phrase. So the postulation that this is some scheme to take over the region and its oil is specious. There could be a wisp of validity if we had elections every 12 years, but with our four year cycle, there is hardly time to implement such a "plan."
A noted journalistâs unearthing of evidence of profiteering by a leading architect of the Bush administrationâs war on Iraq has evoked an extraordinary response. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagonâs Defense Policy Board, answered the exposure of his use of public office for private gain by denouncing veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh as a âterrorist.â http://www.gooff.com/NM/templates/Breaking_News.asp?articleid=334&zoneid=2 What the frigging f%$K is happening to my country??? http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13353&perpage=6&pagenumber=19
What's happening to your country? It's obvious; in your case you simply need to be more objective and analytical in your news consumption.
Thanks again to the information I am able to glean from intelligence sources due to my Safeway Club Card, I have the following good news to report: The invasion will begin on Thursday after Bush's speech and a final warning to Saddam. In the early dawn hours of March 20th, lead elements of the 122nd British Petroleum Division will hook up with scouts of the 24th Texaco Brigade and push for the oil fields in the south. Their timing will coincide with similar forces, mostly of the 39th Chevron Pipe Batallion, entering from the north. All the oil forces are equipped with the newest mallets, spikes, and cans of spraypaint in order to stake their claims on the new petroleum frontier. "Sleepers" in Baghdad are waiting for word of the invasion before bum-rushing all the gas stations and wrapping each gas podium with heavy chains and a good ole Masterlock. There were confirmed sightings of French oil giant TotalFinaElf representatives in Baghdad as recently as yesterday, but after it became apparent that there may indeed be fighting of some kind in the near future, they were seen rushing for the Kuwaiti border waving a white flag where they were initially told to return to Iraq by an angry Sergeant-Major Coughlin of the Royal Paras.