15 Years of Crime

[David Guyatt]

Thierry Meyssan's on the meaning and purpose of 9/11:

15 years of crime

by Thierry Meyssan

The United States and their allies will be commemorating the 15-year anniversary of 9/11. For Thierry Meyssan, it's the occasion to take an honest look at Washington's policies since that date it is not a pretty picture. There are two ways of looking at it either the White House's version of the 9/11 attacks is correct, in which case their response has been particularly counter-productive, or else it's a lie, in which case they have succeeded in pillaging the Greater Middle East.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 15 SEPTEMBER 2016 DEUTSCH ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΆ ESPAÑOL FRANÇAIS ITALIANO PORTUGUÊS РУССКИЙ TÜRKÇE NEDERLANDS

What would the influence of the United States be in the world today without their auxiliary troops, the jihadists?15 years ago, in the United States, on September 11 2001, the «continuity of government plan» (COG) was activated at about 10 a.m. by the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism , Richard Clarke [1]. According to Clarke, this exceptional measure was necessary to respond to the exceptional situation of two aircraft which had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and a third aircraft which had allegedly hit the Pentagon. However, this plan was to be used exclusively in the case of the total destruction of the democratic institutions, by a nuclear attack, for example. It had never been envisaged to activate this plan as long as the President, the vice-President and the Presidents of Assemblies were alive and able to assume their functions.The activation of this plan transfered the responsibilities of the President of the United States to an alternative military authority situated at Mount Weather [2]. This authority only handed back his functions to President George W. Bush Jr, at the end of the day. The composition of this authority and the decisions they may have made have remained, and remain today, secret.Since the President was divested of his functions for close to ten hours on September 11 2001, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, it is technically correct to talk of a «coup d'état». Of course, the expression may shock some people, because we are talking about the United States, because it happened in exceptional circunstances, because the military authority never claimed responsibility for it, and because they gave back Constitutional power to the President without causing any trouble. Nonetheless, stricto sensu, it was indeed a «coup d'état».In a celebrated work published in 1968, (later re-edited), which became the bedside book of the neo-conservatives during the electoral campaign of 2000, the historian Edward Luttwak explained that a coup d'état is all the more sucessful if no-one notices it has happened, and therefore no-one has opposed it [3].Six months after the attacks, I published a book about the political consequences of this day [4]. The media concentrated only on the first four chapters, in which I demonstrated that the official version of the events on that day was impossible. I was widely reproached for failing to give my own version of 9/11 - but I do not have one, and find myself today with more questions than answers.However, the last fifteen years may enlighten us as to what happened on that day.

Since September 11, the Federal State is non-Constitutional

First of all, although certain dispositions were suspended for a moment in 2015, the United States still lives under the empire of the USA Patriot Act. Adopted in haste, 45 days after the coup d'état, this text constitutes a response to terrorism. Taking into account its volume, it would be more accurate to describe it as an anti-terrorist Code, rather than a simple law. The text had been prepared over the two previous years by the Federalist Society. Only 4 parlementarians opposed it.The text suspends Constitutional limitations, formulated by the «Declaration of Rights» - in other words, the first 10 amendments of the Constitution for all State initiatives aimed at fighting terrorism. This is the principle of the permanent state of emergency. As a result, the Federal state may practise torture outside of its own territory, and spy massively on its population. After fifteen years of such practices, it is technically no longer possible for the United States to present itself as a «Constitutional state».In order to apply the Patriot Act, the Federal state first of all created a new department, Homeland Security. The title of this administration is so shocking that it is translated all over the world as «Security of the Interior», which is inexact. Then the Federal state created a variety of political police forces which, according to a vast study by the Washington Post in 2010, employed at that time at least 850,000 new officials to spy on 315 million inhabitants [5].The major institutional innovation of this period is the re-interpretation of the separation of powers. Until recently, we thought, like Montesquieu, that this would enable the maintenance of a balance between the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary, indispensable to the efficient functioning and preservation of democracy. The United States were once able to pride themselves on being the only State in the world to put this genuinely into pratice. But now, on the contrary, the separation of powers means that the Legislative and the Judiciary no longer have any possibility of controlling the Executive. In fact, it is because of this new interpretation that Congress was not authorised to debate the conditions of the coup d'état of September 11.Contrary to what I wrote in 2002, the Western European states have resisted this evolution. It was only eighteen months ago that France gave in, and adopted the principle of a permanent state of emergency, on the occasion of the assassination of the editors of Charlie-Hebdo. This transformation of the interior goes hand in hand with a radical change in its foreign policy.

Since September 11, the non-Constitutional Federal state has pillaged the Greater Middle East

In the days that followed, George W. Bush now reinstated as President of the United States since the evening of September 11 - declared to the Press : «This crusade, this war on terrorism, will take time» [6]. Even if he was obliged to apologise for having said it, the President's choice of words clearly indicated that the enemy was of the Islamic culture, and that the war would be a long one.Indeed, for the first time in their history, the United States have been in a state of uninterrupted war for fifteen years. They defined their Strategy against terrorism [7] which the European Union made haste to copy [8].While successive US administrations have presented this war as a chase from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Iraq to Africa, to Pakistan and the Philippines, then in Libya and Syria, the ex-Supreme Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark has, on the contrary, confirmed the existence of a long-term plan. On September 11, the authors of the coup d'état decided to change all the friendly governments of the «Greater Middle East» and to make war on the seven governments who resisted them in that region. This order was activated by President Bush, four days later, during a meeting at Camp David. We are forced to note that this programme has indeed been put into play, and that it is not over.These régime changes in friendly powers by means of colour revolutions and wars against the régimes which resisted them were not aimed at conquering these countries in the classic imperial sense - Washington already controlled their allies but to ransack them. In this area of the world, particularly in the Levant, the exploitation of these countries was not only hindered by the resistance of the populations, but also by the omnipresent existence of the ruins of antique civilisations. It was therefore impossible to organise plunder without «breaking eggs».According to President Bush, the attacks of September 11 were perpetrated by al-Qaïda, which was a better excuse for attacking Afghanistan than the collapse of oil negotiations with the Talibans in July 2001. Bush's theory was developed by his Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, who promised to present a report on this subject before the Security Council of the United Nations. Not only have the United States been unable to find the time, over the last fifteen years, to actually write this report, but on 4 June last, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, confirmed that his US opposite number had asked him not to bomb US allies, al-Qaïda, in Syria an astounding declaration which has not been denied.Firstly, the non-Constitutional state has pursued its plan relentlessly by lying bare-faced to the rest of the world. After having promised a report on the role of Afghanistan in 9/11, the same Powell lied, phrase after phrase, during a long speech to the Security Council in which he attempted to link the Iraqi government to the attacks, and accused them of wanting to continue with weapons of mass destruction [9].In the space of a few days,the Federal state killed most of the Iraqi army, looted the seven main museums and burned the National Library [10]. It installed in power the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was not an organ of the Coalition of states against President Hussein, but a private company, held in the majority by Kissinger Associates, on the model of the sinister East India Company [11]. For a year, this company stole anything they could get their hands on. Finally, it handed power over to a puppet Iraqi govenment, after having demanded that they declare in writing that they would never ask for reparations, and that for one hundred years, they would not contest the rapacious commercial laws drawn up by the Provisional Authority.In 15 years, the United States have sacrificed more than 10,000 of their own citizens, while their wars have caused more than two million deaths in the «Greater Middle East» [12]. To squeeze victory from those they appointed as their enemies, they have spent more than 3500 billion dollars [13]. And they announce that the massacre and the chaos will continue.Oddly enough, these thousands of billions of dollars have not economically weakened the United States. In fact, they were an investment which enabled them to pillage an entire region of the world, stealing far greater sums.Contrary to the rhetoric concerning September 11, the idea driving the war on terror is logical. But it is based on a plethora of lies which are presented as proven facts. For example, the filiation between Daesh and al-Qaïda is explained by the personality of Abou Moussab al-Zarkaoui, to whom General Powell had dedicated much of his speech before the Security Council, in Febraury 2003. However, the same Powell admitted to having lied through his teeth during this speech, and it is impossible to verify the slightest element of Zarkaoui's CIA biography.If we admit that al-Qaïdai is the continuation of Ben Laden's Arab Legion, integrated as a back-up force for NATO during the wars in Yugoslavia [14] and Libya, we must also admit that al-Qaïda in Iraq, which became the Islamic State in Iraq, then Daesh, is also part of the same continuation.Since the pillage and destruction of our historical heritage is illegal under international law, the non-Constitutional Federal state first of all sub-contracted its dirty work to private armies like Blackwater [15]. But its responsibility was still too visible [16]. It then sub-contracted the job to its new armed allies, the jihadists. From that point on, the pillage of oil consumed by the Western world became attributable to these extremists, and the destruction of our heritage to their religious fanaticism.In order to understand the collaboration of NATO and the jihadists, we have to ask ourselves what would the influence of the United States be without the jihadists. The world would have become multipolar, and Washington would have closed most of its military bases throughout the world. The United States would have become one power among others.This collaboration between NATO and the jihadists shocks many senior civil servants, like General Carter Ham, commander of AfriCom, who, in 2011, refused to work with al-Qaïda, and had to renounce his command of the attack on Libya; or General Michael T. Flynn, commander of the Defense Security Agency, who refused to suppport the creation of Daesh and was obliged to resign in 2014 [17]. This has become the real subject of the Presidential electoral campaign on one side, Hillary Clinton, member of The Family, the cult of the Chiefs of Staff [18], and on the other, Donald Trump, advised by Michael T. Flynn and 88 superior officers [19].Just as during the Cold War, Washington controlled its European allies via «NATO's Secret Armies», the Gladio network [20], so it is now controlling the Greater Middle East, the Caucasus, the Ferghana valley and as far as Xinjiang with «Gladio B» [21].15 years later, the consequences of the coup d'état of September 11are not coming from Muslims, nor the people of the United States, but from those who perpetrated the attacks and their allies. They are the ones who have banalised torture, generalised extra-judiciary executions anywhere in the world, weakened the United Nations, killed more than two million people, and pillaged and destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Source

[Peter Lemkin]

Very good, very true and very sad article....and the worst unmentioned part is there is no prospect for any change in the foreseeable future.

[John Knoble]

It's a safe bet that there was a genuine national crisis. It's also a given that the people at the highest level of government are very capable and know a lot of things that the rest of us don't. We're they completely honest with the public in the aftermath of 9/11? Probably not. Did they have their reasons? Probably. Did they act in good faith to further our national interests? Probably. Would the rest of us agree with their decisions if we knew everything? As is the case with most governmental actions, some of us would and some of us wouldn't. Has the "peer review" process made possible by the Internet fostered a credibility gap between inquisitive members of the public and senior policymakers and their captive spin machine? Without a doubt. Is that good or bad for our national interests? In the long run it will be good because they will be forced to weave their future narratives more carefully. In the meantime, there is some gnawing disillusionment that has something to do with Bernie Sanders' surprising strength in the primaries and the Republican rejection of establishment candidates.

[David Guyatt]

It's a safe bet that there was a genuine national crisis. It's also a given that the people at the highest level of government are very capable and know a lot of things that the rest of us don't. We're they completely honest with the public in the aftermath of 9/11? Probably not. Did they have their reasons? Probably. Did they act in good faith to further our national interests? Probably. Would the rest of us agree with their decisions if we knew everything? As is the case with most governmental actions, some of us would and some of us wouldn't. Has the "peer review" process made possible by the Internet fostered a credibility gap between inquisitive members of the public and senior policymakers and their captive spin machine? Without a doubt. Is that good or bad for our national interests? In the long run it will be good because they will be forced to weave their future narratives more carefully. In the meantime, there is some gnawing disillusionment that has something to do with Bernie Sanders' surprising strength in the primaries and the Republican rejection of establishment candidates.

Is it a "safe bet" there was a genuine national crisis? Not really. Consider reading the Wolfowitz Doctrine (I notice the recent Wiki entry has been modified from the previous one that showed the "spin" rewrites) officially known as the Defence Planning Guidance.

Extract from foregoing link:

March 8, 1992: Raw US Plan Is Leaked to the Press; Details Include Preserving Role as Sole Superpower and Obtaining Oil in the Middle East

The New York Times headline on March 8, 1992. [Source: Public domain]The Defense Planning Guidance, "a blueprint for the department's spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union," is leaked to the New York Times. [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/8/1992; NEWSDAY, 3/16/2003] The document will cause controversy, because it hasn't yet been "scrubbed" to replace candid language with euphemisms. [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/10/1992; NEW YORK TIMES, 3/11/1992; OBSERVER, 4/7/2002] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role, it "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/8/1992; NEW YORK TIMES, 3/8/1992] As the Observer summarizes it: "America's friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington."

So nice to be "dependent" on the world's only superpower. It discharges it's privileged position with such wisdom and peace, as we see:

They call for "punishing" or "threatening punishment" against regional aggressors before they act. [HARPER'S, 10/2002] Interests to be defended preemptively include "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism."

Hmm. punishing regional aggressors before they act. I guess the world's only superpower also was solely responsible for determining which nation was a regional aggressor and which wasn't --- the decisive factor being who willingly bent their knee to Washington in subservience.

And if they had oil and refused to turn it over to the only superpower, well fcuk them, that's clearly a sign of aggression and deserving of punishment.

The section describing US interests in the Middle East states that the "overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve US and Western access to the region's oil… deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect US nationals and property, and safeguard… access to international air and seaways."

"Preserving" US and Western "access" to oil... Hot dang! How dare them Ayrabs have all OUR oil.

Then there's General Wesley Clark's presentation about 7 nations in 5 years on Youtube:



Then we have COG, Continuity of Government, a top secret parallel government "coup" mechanism that kicked in on the day of 9/11

So, did "they" have their reasons for being dishonest? You betcha! If the American public learned early on what's has become evident now, Bush and his greedy cohorts would have been strung up.

A couple of million deaths later, they still need stringing up. Because they're still playing out their megalomaniac fantasies and killing innocents; witness the below:

Assad's Death Warrant

[URL="https://friendsofsyria.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/assads-death-warrant/"]

16FridaySep 2016

[/URL]
serkan senturk | Shutterstock.comby Mike Witney

"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don't want us in Syria, Politico

The conflict in Syria is not a war in the conventional sense of the word. It is a regime change operation, just like Libya and Iraq were regime change operations.
The main driver of the conflict is the country that's toppled more than 50 sovereign governments since the end of World War 2. (See: Bill Blum here.) We're talking about the United States of course.

Washington is the hands-down regime change champion, no one else even comes close. That being the case, one might assume that the American people would notice the pattern of intervention, see through the propaganda and assign blame accordingly. But that never seems to happen and it probably won't happen here either. No matter how compelling the evidence may be, the brainwashed American people always believe their government is doing the right thing.

But the United States is not doing the right thing in Syria. Arming, training and funding Islamic extremists that have killed half a million people, displaced 7 million more and turned the country into an uninhabitable wastelands is not the right thing. It is the wrong thing, the immoral thing. And the US is involved in this conflict for all the wrong reasons, the foremost of which is gas. The US wants to install a puppet regime in Damascus so it can secure pipeline corridors in the East, oversee the transport of vital energy reserves from Qatar to the EU, and make sure that those reserves continue to be denominated in US Dollars that are recycled into US Treasuries and US financial assets. This is the basic recipe for maintaining US dominance in the Middle East and for extending America's imperial grip on global power into the future.

The war in Syria did not begin when the government of Bashar al Assad cracked down on protestors in the spring of 2011. That version of events is obfuscating hogwash. The war began in 2009, when Assad rejected a Qatari plan to transport gas from Qatar to the EU via Syria. As Robert F Kennedy Jr. explains in his excellent article "Syria: Another pipeline War":

"The $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey….would have linked Qatar directly to European energy markets via distribution terminals in Turkey… The Qatar/Turkey pipeline would have given the Sunni Kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America's closest ally in the Arab world. ….

In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria "to protect the interests of our Russian ally….
Assad further enraged the Gulf's Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved "Islamic pipeline" running from Iran's side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran's influence in the Mid-East and the world…"

Naturally, the Saudis, Qataris, Turks and Americans were furious at Assad, but what could they do? How could they prevent him from choosing his own business partners and using his own sovereign territory to transport gas to market?

What they could do is what any good Mafia Don would do; break a few legs and steal whatever he wanted. In this particular situation, Washington and its scheming allies decided to launch a clandestine proxy-war against Damascus, kill or depose Assad, and make damn sure the western oil giants nabbed the future pipeline contracts and controlled the flow of energy to Europe. That was the plan at least. Here's more from Kennedy:

"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.

Repeat: "the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline", he signed his own death warrant. That single act was the catalyst for the US aggression that transformed a bustling, five thousand-year old civilization into a desolate Falluja-like moonscape overflowing with homicidal fanatics that were recruited, groomed and deployed by the various allied intelligence agencies.
But what's particularly interesting about this story is that the US attempted a nearly-identical plan 60 years earlier during the Eisenhower administration. Here's another clip from the Kennedy piece:

"During the 1950′s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers … mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism which CIA Director Allan Dulles equated with communism particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism….

The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 barely a year after the agency's creation…. Syria's democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. (so)… the CIA engineered a coup, replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA's handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, 14 weeks into his regime…..

(CIA agent Rocky) Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1956 with $3 million in Syrian pounds to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Kuwaiti's democratically elected secularist regime….

But all that CIA money failed to corrupt the Syrian military officers. The soldiers reported the CIA's bribery attempts to the Ba'athist regime. In response, the Syrian army invaded the American Embassy taking Stone prisoner. Following harsh interrogation, Stone made a televised confession to his roles in the Iranian coup and the CIA's aborted attempt to overthrow Syria's legitimate government….(Then) Syria purged all politicians sympathetic to the U.S. and executed them for treason." (Politico)

See how history is repeating itself? It's like the CIA was too lazy to even write a new script, they just dusted off the old one and hired new actors.

Fortunately, Assad with the help of Iran, Hezbollah and the Russian Airforce has fended off the effort to oust him and install a US-stooge. This should not be taken as a ringing endorsement of Assad as a leader, but of the principal that global security depends on basic protections of national sovereignty, and that the cornerstone of international law has to be a rejection of unprovoked aggression whether the hostilities are executed by one's own military or by armed proxies that are used to achieve the same strategic objectives while invoking plausible deniability. The fact is, there is no difference between Bush's invasion of Iraq and Obama's invasion of Syria. The moral, ethical and legal issues are the same, the only difference is that Obama has been more successful in confusing the American people about what is really going on.

And what's going on is regime change: "Assad must go". That's been the administration's mantra from the get go. Obama and Co are trying to overthrow a democratically-elected secular regime that refuses to bow to Washington's demands to provide access to pipeline corridors that will further strengthen US dominance in the region. That's what's really going on behind the ISIS distraction and the "Assad is a brutal dictator" distraction and the "war-weary civilians in Aleppo" distraction. Washington doesn't care about any of those things. What Washington cares about is oil, power and money. How can anyone be confused about that by now? Kennedy summed it up like this:

"We must recognize the Syrian conflict is a war over control of resources indistinguishable from the myriad clandestine and undeclared oil wars we have been fighting in the Mid-East for 65 years. And only when we see this conflict as a proxy war over a pipeline do events become comprehensible."

That says it all, don't you think?

Source

[Drew Phipps]

The Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Pentagon's Planning document are from 1992 (when GHW Bush was president) but such policies probably contributed to the Democratic victory that same year, as the average American simply wants and believes his country is, and should be, part of the "community of nations." As you know, 9/11 and PNAC was 9 years later, but many of the same players had been recycled into the GW Bush administration.

The Ramsey Clark speech was 2007. Once again, the candid remarks may, or may not, have contributed to the defeat of the Republican candidate for President in 2008. If not that precise candid statement, the fact was that the Republicans certainly seemed intent on prosecuting foreign wars in which the average American had quit believing.

The anti - Syria campaign that is alleged to have begun in 2009 in response to Syrian refusal to permit a Saudi pipeline under Obama seems to me to be a horse of a different color, in that direct US military intervention has been successfully avoided by Obama, even though his domestic opponents (then and now) have advocated more direct intervention. I have no confidence that Clinton would manage to (or desire to) prevent direct intervention, and plenty of confidence that Trump would quickly increase US involvement.

It seems to me that, to the extent the Wolfowitz Doctrine has controlled foreign policy, it has historically done so only from a Republican Presidency. And also that the American public, when given a chance, has heroically voted down Wolfowitz and its offspring, when it became apparent that the coinciding administration was pursuing policies consistent with Wolfowitz. I just don't know if we will be given that chance in 2016.

[David Guyatt]

The Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Pentagon's Planning document are from 1992 (when GHW Bush was president) but such policies probably contributed to the Democratic victory that same year, as the average American simply wants and believes his country is, and should be, part of the "community of nations." As you know, 9/11 and PNAC was 9 years later, but many of the same players had been recycled into the GW Bush administration.

The Ramsey Clark speech was 2007. Once again, the candid remarks may, or may not, have contributed to the defeat of the Republican candidate for President in 2008. If not that precise candid statement, the fact was that the Republicans certainly seemed intent on prosecuting foreign wars in which the average American had quit believing.

The anti - Syria campaign that is alleged to have begun in 2009 in response to Syrian refusal to permit a Saudi pipeline under Obama seems to me to be a horse of a different color, in that direct US military intervention has been successfully avoided by Obama, even though his domestic opponents (then and now) have advocated more direct intervention. I have no confidence that Clinton would manage to (or desire to) prevent direct intervention, and plenty of confidence that Trump would quickly increase US involvement.

It seems to me that, to the extent the Wolfowitz Doctrine has controlled foreign policy, it has historically done so only from a Republican Presidency. And also that the American public, when given a chance, has heroically voted down Wolfowitz and its offspring, when it became apparent that the coinciding administration was pursuing policies consistent with Wolfowitz. I just don't know if we will be given that chance in 2016.

Yup, the WD dates from 1992 and was the new doctrine set out immediately following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and was was part of the Project for a New American Century, which implies that it was meant to take the US forward for a century. My take is that important foreign policy plans such as this are always above and beyond narrow party divisions, and are usually set for long periods of time. And the people aren't consulted about it. That would be far too democratic and thus dangerous for the elite who runs the US.

My argument is that the Doctrine is above and beyond either of the two political parties. Both have followed it. Perhaps if Trump wins the election he'll continue to do so too? We'll have to wait and see. I also consider it is really very evident that the Doctrine is still very much part of the ongoing neocon strategy and that Obama has followed it throughout his term in office. As we can see from the Wesley Clark vid, the 7 nations in 5 years is still ongoing all these years later. The 5 years was probably knowingly optimistic by the politician generals who run the Pentagon.

In regard to your horse of a different colour - I agree to the extent that the policy chosen by Obama was adapted to use regional actors instead of direct US military intervention. This, I think was simply a case of politically expediency on Obama's part --- almost certainly as a result of a recognition of war fatigue by the American public - and/or fatigue by US allies like the UK. Let's face it the UK stuck two fingers up when it unilaterally decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Further to this argument, and as former DIA boss, General Michael Flynn, made clear just a couple of years ago, Obama had purposely chosen to back ISIS and allow it to become the deniable US hand in Syria. And we know that Obama has funded and armed ISIS together with Al Nusra, al-Qaeda and the other thoroughly nice "moderates" in Syria to do the dirty work for Uncle - via its client states like Turkey, Saudi, Qatar etc. But ISIS went off the reservation and now has to be culled.

Meanwhile, it is fair to point out that the Syrian war has always been about the gas pipeline --- whether Qatar (de facto Exxon) gets its gas to Europe or whether Russia does. The US recognised a danger that a Europe dependent on Russian gas tended towards weakening US/NATO alliance inside the EU, with an emphasis on Germany because the US has always feared a close Russo-German relationship in Europe. Such a relationship would weaken the US's de facto control on that continent and consequently considerably hinder the bigger global project of the US. Just a few days ago, Turkey announced that is now going forward with Russia. So it's Russian gas that is going to Europe, it seems. That, for me, completely confirms US backing for the coup against Erdogan and he is responding accordingly.

[Drew Phipps]

Michael Flynn is an entirely unreliable biased witness with respect to Obama. He's a top Trump crony now, so I'd not take anything he says about any Democrat any more seriously than I'd take Trump's sudden interest in going to church in predominantly black communities.

I disagree that the Democrats have followed the Wolfowitz game plan during Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. If anything, it seems to me that they have been yanking back as hard on the reins as they can. I wish I was confident that Hillary would do the same.

[Lauren Johnson]

It seems to me that, to the extent the Wolfowitz Doctrine has controlled foreign policy, it has historically done so only from a Republican Presidency.

I disagree to some extent about the WD controlling foreign policy via a Republican Presidency. The Bush II presidency, no argument. Clinton? I think it influenced his presidency via the deep state as seen in the Yugoslavian War. Although it was sold as a war protecting a helpless minority, it was in fact geopolitical war start to finish. Then Obama: where to start. His foreign policy is all Wolfowitz, as it will be with Hillary.

[David Guyatt]

Michael Flynn is an entirely unreliable biased witness with respect to Obama. He's a top Trump crony now, so I'd not take anything he says about any Democrat any more seriously than I'd take Trump's sudden interest in going to church in predominantly black communities.

I disagree that the Democrats have followed the Wolfowitz game plan during Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. If anything, it seems to me that they have been yanking back as hard on the reins as they can. I wish I was confident that Hillary would do the same.

Not really, Flynn made his case about ISIS being a salafist danger in the ME well before Trump began running. It is also worth highlighting the fact that a Pentagon document was leaked that confirmed what Flynn was saying.

In which case it is more the case that it is Obama who would be an entirely unreliable biased witness with respect to Flynn and not the other way around.

We'll agree to disagree about the democratic party. My position derives from an entirely non-partisan position. And I have little but contempt for Bill Clinton for many reasons. You might remember that during his administration the US shipped Usama bin Laden's al-Qaeda / Mujahideen units to Bosnia to fight against the Serbs in the war there. Indeed, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel, Usama actually travelled from Afghanistan to Bosnia to rally his troops. His time as governor of Arkansas and the drugs that flowed through that state during his term in office is legion.

I'm quite strongly am of the opinion that the democratic and republican parties have been for decades nothing other than a magic lamp show to keep Americans fast asleep so that the US elite can do what they do without complaint. And that if one wishes to really comprehend the real designs of the elite, then one should simply cast objective eyes at US foreign policy decisions which almost always reveal their true machinations. Domestic politics are the sideshow.

[Dawn Meredith]

It's a safe bet that there was a genuine national crisis. It's also a given that the people at the highest level of government are very capable and know a lot of things that the rest of us don't. We're they completely honest with the public in the aftermath of 9/11? Probably not. Did they have their reasons? Probably. Did they act in good faith to further our national interests? Probably. Would the rest of us agree with their decisions if we knew everything? As is the case with most governmental actions, some of us would and some of us wouldn't. Has the "peer review" process made possible by the Internet fostered a credibility gap between inquisitive members of the public and senior policymakers and their captive spin machine? Without a doubt. Is that good or bad for our national interests? In the long run it will be good because they will be forced to weave their future narratives more carefully. In the meantime, there is some gnawing disillusionment that has something to do with Bernie Sanders' surprising strength in the primaries and the Republican rejection of establishment candidates.

Wow. A "genuine national crises"? Really. Ya one that was created by PNAC. "Completely honest"???? No they were completely dishonest.

Good faith? Not a chance....

You have one strange set of opinions for this particular forum.