The Project for a New American Empire
By Jeremiah Haynes
Reader Weekly
In the days following the collapse of the Soviet Union Paul Wolfowitz, an erudite underling, was ushered into the Secretary of DefenseÂ’s office for a long-planned discussion on the state of American foreign affairs. The subsequent conversation ran over its allotted time and necessitated the canceling of an appointment with the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who had been constructing a differing proposal. In this discussion Wolfowitz laid out the blueprints for the creation of the American empire to Dick Cheney.
After the elder BushÂ’s loss to Clinton, his draconian soldiers melded back into civilian life. Malcontent at the loss of power, they formed a think tank in 1997 that sought to regain an ideological foothold in the mainstream political machine. This think tank was aptly named the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). A quick perusal of the membership list leaves one with a good idea of which way the groupÂ’s political orientation sways.
Aside from George W. BushÂ’s brother, Jeb Bush, the list also boasts his Vice President (Dick Cheney), his Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld), his deputy Secretary of Defense (Paul Wolfowitz), his fatherÂ’s Vice President (Dan Quayle), and the current Chairman of the Defense Policy Board (Richard Perle). Other than this nuclear family we find numerous powerful and influential names also gracing the publications of PNAC such as Steve Forbes, an ex-presidential candidate and head of the elite publication Forbes; William Kristol, who founded the Weekly Standard, a neo-conservative rag that has been bankrolled from the outset by Rupert Murdoch; and Zalmay Khalizad, who became BushÂ’s ambassador to Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion. As this is the intellectual wing of the Bush band, Yale is well represented by the Kagan family, which includes two eminent professors and a Skull & Bones Brother of WÂ’s. These personages are simply the tip of the iceberg, as PNAC boasts a literal whoÂ’s who of neo-conservative thinkers and players.
Who could have foreseen that only nine years later a “second Pearl Harbor,” or neo-Reichstag, would usher in a Brave New World Order as Americans marched along to the tune piped by these relentless Hegelian Hawks. This cadre would envision a radical grasp for global power that would eventually restructure global politics and introduce the world to the “Bush doctrine,” which gave a paranoid country the right to preemptively strike any opponent it saw fit.
All of these jingoistic politicos congealed under the aegis of PNAC ostensibly to support “a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities” (PNAC 1997).
This declaration, however, amounts to little more than eloquent double-speak. PNAC’s goal is quite simply to retain the hegemonic Pax Americana, or “American peace,” that we achieved after the fall of the Soviet Union. Through a careful reading of their published white papers one begins to realize the magnitude and scope of these hawk’s plans, namely: a New World Order under American control ala George Orwell’s prophetic vision “1984.”
In September 2000 PNAC released an infamous “project paper” entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century. In it contributors unflinchingly laid out their modus operandi for maintaining our “arsenal of democracy.” This document is a must-read for anyone interested in the direction the Bush Administration is leading the world. In it the contributors lay out the essential functions and changes necessary for the U.S. military to retain this Pax Americana.
• Defend the American Homeland (remember, this is pre-9/11)
• “Fight and decisively win multiple simultaneous major theater wars” (code phrase for World War IV)
• “Perform the constabulary duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions” (i.e. increase our global policing powers).
• “Transform U.S. forces to exploit the ‘revolution in military affairs.’”
It seems odd that a document published a year before 9/11 would have “homeland security” as its number one military goal. Aside from a few insignificant attacks during World War II, the geography of mainland United States, and our shared border with friendly countries, has afforded us adequate protection from conventional military attacks. It makes one wonder if these warmongers knew something we did not.
In order to attain these goals the contributors implore that we must radically revamp our military, arguing that we must:
a) maintain our nuclear superiority
b) restore the personnel strength of our military to the levels of the Reagan years
c) reposition military bases from cold war strategic positions to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia (presupposing a “major theater war with China and recalcitrant Muslim regimes”)
d) selectively modernize U.S. forces
e) cancel “roadblock” programs (i.e. funding black holes)
f) develop and deploy global missile defense (Star Wars and HAARP)
g) “control the new ‘international commons’ of space and ‘cyberspace,’ and pave the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of space control.”
h) exploit the “revolution in military affairs”
i) “increase defense spending gradually to a minimum level of 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product”(PNAC 2000, IV)
Some of these changes seem a little more innocuous to the post-9/11 reader as “defending the homeland” has become the Orwellian chimera of 21st century America. Conversely, the sections dealing with global missile defense and controlling the new “international commons of space and cyberspace” read like a science fiction novel, concluding that NASA is a roadblock to its implementation.
That the PNAC hawks urgently pushed the U.S. invasion of Iraq will come as no surprise. Aside from wresting control of the Iraqi oil fields, the war in Iraq serves numerous strategic advantages in PNACÂ’s next World War. Most people donÂ’t realize that the U.S. occupation of Iraq effectively surrounds Iran and Syria with U.S.-friendly regimes, thereby choking them off.
Now that Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya are out, two-and-a-half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony. [Â…] As a result of the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories unfriendly to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the Gulf States, Iraq, and the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel. This is a significant strategic change and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist countries. It is not surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a Shiite uprising in Iraq. I do not know if the American plan was actually to encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation. (Podhoretz 2004, pp.52-53)
In retrospect the invasion of Afghanistan can be likened to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 in that it signaled the beginning of Nazi Germany’s push towards empire. Seymour Hersh, a distinguished reporter from the New Yorker, recently caused a ruckus in Washington with his January 24, 2005 article in the entitled “The Coming Wars.” In the article Hersh claims to have spoken with many anonymous high-ranking Pentagon officials who informed him that the Pentagon has been “conducting secret reconnaissance mission inside Iran at least since last summer.” (Hersh 2005) The mission is ostensibly to accumulate “…intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites…”(Hersh 2005). Hersh claims that this is simply an example of the Pentagon operating unilaterally without congressional approval or oversight under the aegis of conducting the “War on Terror.” Fittingly, Special Forces are increasingly becoming unfettered and allowed to use terrorist tactics to the extent of starting up cells in order to destabilize terrorist recruitment. According to Hersh this gives the Pentagon liberal license to strike with impunity. A senior Pentagon advisor succinctly sums up the bellicose attitude in the giant pentagram, “it’s a global free-fire zone”(Hersh 2005). Hersh captures the prevailing mood at the Pentagon:
“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”
Don’t expect the Bush administration to use the ubiquitous “weapons of mass destruction” card again, as “there’s no education in the second kick of a mule.”(Hersh 2005) In all likelihood there may be no actual war declaration or even a visible war, as 9/11 did away with those the necessity of those inconveniences.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this grand chessboard is the China maneuver. Rebuilding AmericaÂ’s Defenses repeats the monotonous mantra of repositioning our forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia in a thinly veiled attempt at reining in the rising Asian Tiger. China has been an area of the world that holds a special place in the elder BushÂ’s heart since he was the ambassador from 1974-1975. Many researchers claim that ambassadorships, more often then not, are simply covers for CIA station chiefs. Fittingly, Bush moved from China to head the CIA, an organization that the Skull & Bones Bush family has had an intimate relationship with since its inception (Allen Dulles, the first head of the CIA, and his brother John Foster Dulles represented the Bush junta in their trading with the NaziÂ’s trial).
In contemporary geopolitics the straight of Taiwan constitutes perhaps the most volatile “hotspot” on the planet. The Chinese consider Taiwan a renegade province that it promises to reign in. The United States, on the other hand, is bound by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to protect the democratic island. One cannot read Rebuilding America’s Defenses without being left with the foreboding feeling that this urgent repositioning of forces is simply a pretext to the dawn of the final World War. Republican policy regarding Taiwan was set out clearly in 2000:
“Our policy is based on the principle that there must be no use of force by China against Taiwan. We deny the right of Beijing to impose its rule on the free Taiwanese people. All issues regarding Taiwan's future must be resolved peacefully and must be agreeable to the people of Taiwan. If China violates these principles and attacks Taiwan, then the United States will respond appropriately in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act. America will help Taiwan defend itself”(Brookes 2003).
W has echoed this policy on numerous occasions, claiming that in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that the United States would do “whatever it took to help Taiwan defend itself”(Brookes 2003). All eyes will certainly be on Taiwan during the 2008 Olympics as China hosts the event for the first time. If the games are held, there will either be an oppressive, tense mood underlying the event, like the 1936 games in Berlin, or jubilation at the diffusion of a ticking bomb. Given that George W. Bush will be a lame duck in a presidential election year, look for China to make a bold grasp at superpower status. If America is to retain or expand its current hegemony the PNAC cabal know that they must nip China in the bud. If the Chinese were to quash Taiwanese democracy, the blow would signal the downfall of our Pax Americana, and usher in the next World War. Given the fear/warmongering vision of PNAC, don’t plan any trips to Beijing to watch Mark Phelps make another go at the gold.
In 2000 PNAC lamented the possibility of the implementation of these aggressive changes as sort of a major catastrophe. “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.” (PNAC 2000, p.51) It is one of history’s most stunning “coincidences” that, less then one year after this document was published, with their puppet at the helm, America would conveniently endure another Pearl Harbor on September 11, 2001. The dust had literally not settled as these PNAC neo-conservative hawks set into motion a coup planned after the fall of the Berlin Wall and refined during the 2000 election. George W. Bush, whose grandfather managed a plant that used Auschwitz slaves during World War II, set World War III into motion using a Goebbels-inspired campaign of fear and terror.
Brookes, Peter (2003) U.S.-Taiwan Defense Relations in the Bush Administration. Heritage Lecture #808 (Heritage Foundation,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/hl808.cfm)
Hersh, Seymour (2005) The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon can now do in Secret. (New York US. New Yorker Magazine, January 24, 2005.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact)
Podhoretz, Norman. (2004) World War IV: How it Started, What it Means, and Why We Have to Win. (US, Commentary Magazine, September 2004,
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/podhoretz.htm)
Project For a New American Century (1997) Statement Of Principles (
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm)
Project For a New American Century (2000) Rebuilding AmericaÂ’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century (
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf)
