Barbwire by Barbano: Smoking guns & toxic presents

A toxic lump of coal now leaks its poisons into the roots of America's Christmas tree this yule season. The omens, signs and portents which should set off alarms are all present. Hell, they're ringing, whining and wailing. We ignore them at our peril.

Alas and alack, we will probably not think of acting until it's too late. It appears that we are just a few minutes from midnight, when the portal into the darkest passage in this country's history will open and close behind us.

We are staring at the end of constitutional government and the de jure imposition of our current de facto military rule.

The Bushes love war and have profited handsomely by it. Gulf War I was fought to protect the family's oil leases. National media have such short memories that none seem to remember that the reason for Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait lay in the fact that Bush I gave him permission.

Saddam asked U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie for the Bush administration's position regarding his outrage at Kuwait using slant drills to drain oil from underneath his territory, among other things. Glaspie responded that the U.S. does not become involved in border disputes.

Saddam took that as an all-clear from his longtime patroons in the U.S. We funded Saddam's murderous 1980-88 war against Iran. Many of those weapons have been used against us. We made sure Saddam acquired the wherewithal to produce every weapon known to man, then decried it when the Bush oil lease options were in jeopardy. (There is justice — after Gulf War I, they turned out to be dry holes, another one of Dubya's failed business ventures.)

Now, no less than Gen. Tommy Franks, former boss of U.S. Central Command, says the end is near.

"Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that 'the worst thing that could happen' is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties," according to NewsMax.com's account of Franks' interview in the current edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine.

"If that happens, Franks said, '... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.'

"Franks then offered 'in a practical sense' what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack: 'It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world — it may be in the United States of America — that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.'"

Franks' statement is unique only because he's the one saying it. In the October edition of Harper's magazine, historian Kevin Baker warned that, far from reassessing our intelligence and security failures (a study which the Bushites have stopped), "the Bush Administration has decided it is the Bill of Rights that needs to be reassessed...the war has largely succeeded in finishing off any effective opposition," Baker noted.

For evidence of that, look no further than the current savaging of Dr. Howard Dean by jealous beltway Democrats.

"With their dominance of the national media, their vast advantages in money and organization, their tactical ruthlessness, and the disarray of the opposition, George W. Bush and his party have positioned themselves for a crushing electoral victory in 2004," Baker writes.

"When troubles arise in this new America...it is unlikely that we will return to a befuddled, liberal opposition. Instead we will probably look for the real thing. When (the Republican Party) can no longer keep up its various pretenses, we will seek out an even more confident hand. The one public institution we respect above all others -- because most of us have never experienced it. The one that more than three quarters of us have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in, and the one that has, after all, the longest experience in running a paternalistic, authoritarian society. The one that is demographically the most like us, that does its job with startling efficiency and without complaint; the one that captures our imagination...In the end, we'll beg for the coup," he concludes.

Now comes Gen. Franks telling us that Baker is right.

The plan for the invasion of Iraq was a remake of a takeover strategy Henry Kissinger wrote in 1975. Bush the Elder dismissed it as crazy when his aides, now running the show for Bush II, presented it. Paul Wolfowitz warmed it over and sold it to Cheney and his highborn student.

Bush insiders noted in early 2001 that a catastrophic event was all that was needed to implement the plan. Cheney's meetings with energy executives in March, 2001 — half a year before the airplane hijackings — included a map of Iraq's oil fields and a list of companies wanting the business.

In order to manufacture consent for the Iraq war, the Bushites planted the false idea that Saddam Hussein was somehow complicit in the 911 attacks.

That's never been proven. What has been proven is that Bush allowed a plane to fly around the U.S. on Sept. 12, 2001, picking up members of the bin Laden family to spirit them out of the country before the FBI could interview them.

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

So said Adolf Hitler' second-in-command Hermann Goering. Nothing's changed.

The stage is now set for the warlike Bush family to strike the final blow and place this warlike nation under the control of the professional warmakers.

The only remedy for a military coup? There are more guns than people in this heavily armed, fearbesotted country. With Franks' statement, the fear has moved from the fringe to the front burner, from high and dry to the mainstream, pick and mix your metaphors.

The fear that we might start shooting back is perhaps the only thing which may stop the final stage of the coup.

Pray for peace on earth, but pray harder for women and men of goodwill.

Happy holidays.

Be well. Raise hell.

SMOKING GUNS

Gen. Tommy Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
NewsMax.com, 11-21-2003

Pres. Bush the First and James Baker give Saddam Hussein
permission to invade Kuwait
Transcript of Ambassador April Glaspie's 7-25-90 meeting with Saddam
The New York Times, 9-23-1990

Michael Moore: Risky letters from soldiers in Iraq
MichaelMoore.com, 12-20-2003

The 30-Year Kissinger-Wolfowitz-Cheney-Bush oil war plan
Green Left Weekly (Australia), 12-5-2003

March 2001 Cheney energy meetings produce map of Iraq oil fields and lists of companies wanting a piece of the action
NOW with Bill Moyers, Judicial Watch court discovery, PBS 7-18-2003

Chevron wants economic sanctions on Libya lifted
NOW with Bill Moyers, Interview with Judicial Watch, PBS 7-11-2003

Oil War 23 years in the making
The Toronto Star, 3-9-2003

The 30-Year Itch
Mother Jones magazine, March-April 2003

Talking Treason — Ashcroft in Nevada
Barbwire by Barbano, Daily Sparks Tribune 9-7-2003

DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU DEPT.

Dubya Dealing — Media missed the heart of Harken Energy
Barbwire by Barbano, Daily Sparks Tribune 7-14-2002
includes "Replace lusty Dallas Ewings with dealing D.C. Bushes" (4-7-1991)

The above also features quotes from and links to Kevin Phillips and Joe Conason articles in the Feb. 2002 edition of Harper's magazine. Therein, Conason presciently predicted that a Dubya administration would be one of crony capitalism. Phillips just published a well-reviewed and meticulously researched new book on the histoy of the Bush family and its generations of ties to...Enron. See a review in the January-February 2004 edition of Mother Jones magazine, not yet online as of this writing.

American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the
House of Bush by Kevin Phillips, Viking Press, 331 pages, $25.95

More from Harper's

How to sell a war and other deadly depredations

Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and Australia

The Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below

ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press

     SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.

     By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)

     Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.

Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006, Free registration may be required

      BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job
Chilling forecasts from Alex Carey
9-4-94

      BARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchy
3-30-97

...and more ammo

The sands of time do not affect the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006

      Rinfret, Pierre A.; "Peace is Bullish"; Look Magazine, 5-31-1966

      Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
I've been telling you so for 10 freakin' years