Existentialist Cowboy
Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008

In a ‘manual’ which is officially to be released only to ’students from foreign countries on a case-by-case basis only’, the US Army outlines a program of what it now calls ‘irregular warfare’, in fact US state sponsored terrorism, insurgency, and PSYOPS.

1-21. Waging protracted IW depends on building global capability and capacity. IW will not be won by the United States alone but rather through combined efforts with multinational partners. Combined IW [Irregular Warfare, euphemism for TERRORISM] will require the joint force to establish a long-term sustained presence in numerous countries to build partner capability and capacity. This capability and capacity extends U.S. operational reach, multiplies forces available, and provides increased options for defeating adversaries. The constituent activities of IW are:

* Insurgency.
* COIN.
* UW.
* Terrorism
* CT.
* FID.
* Stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations.
* Strategic communication (SC).
* PSYOP.
* Civil-military operations (CMO).
* Information operations (IO).
* Intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) activities.
* Transnational criminal activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms dealing, and illegal financial transactions that support or sustain IW.
* Law enforcement activities focused on countering irregular adversaries.

1-22. The above list of operations and activities can be conducted within IW;

–Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008[PDF]

Ignoring 1) the mountainous body of evidence that US policy and the CIA, specifically, is the root-cause of the vast majority of the what is commonly called ‘world terrorism’; and 2) the equally impressive body of hard evidence that 911 was an inside job, the Army cites 911 as the pretext by which the US should embark above the policy as outlined above.[See: Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes ]

1-18. The 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States highlighted the increased danger of warfare conducted by other-than-state enemies. Recognizing that such irregular threats by nonstate actors would be a likely and even dominant pattern throughout the 21st century, national policy makers dictated that planners must analyze and prepare for such irregular threats. It was clear that previous assumptions about the terms “conventional,” “traditional,” or “regular” warfare, and reliance solely on a “regular” or “conventional warfare” doctrine were inadequate. IW was a significant theme in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report. In April 2006, the Pentagon drafted the execution roadmap for IW as a means of combating this growing threat from actions beyond conventional state-to-state military conflict.

–Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008 [PDF]

Elsewhere, the document cites the threat posed to the US by “WMD—such as nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. But I have yet to find a single word, phrase, sentence or paragraph in which the manual mentioned the threat posed the rest of the world by some forty years or more of US meddling, threats, covert operations, US sponsored assassinations, and overt threats of bombing and/or war and invasion. Instead, we get platitudes that are made absolutely meaningless by the remainder of this arrogant, imperialistic document.

A-64. Democracy and the protection of fundamental liberties were the basis for the creation of the United States more than 200 years ago. Since then, a central goal of U.S. foreign policy has been to promote respect for democracy and human rights throughout the world. The DOS— .. Promotes democracy as a way to achieve security, stability, and prosperity for the entire world. .. Helps establish and assist newly formed democracies.

It is odd that as the US is said to be ‘defending’ Democracy, it is subverting it. It is said that the United States must be concerned about the possibility that terrorists may acquire WMD, ignoring the fact that the US leads the world in the manufacture, sale and distribution of WMD. Let’s put this another way: the US military spending is greater than that spent by the rest of the world’s nations combined.

If terrorists should ever obtain WMD, the chances are good that they will get them from the US, perhaps with monies raised selling cocaine to the one of the largest drug dealers on the planet Earth: the CIA!

During the 40s and 50s, most of the public was unaware of what the CIA was doing. Those who knew thought they were fighting the good fight against communism, like James Bond. However, they could not keep their actions secret forever, and by the 60s and 70s, Americans began learning about the agency’s crimes and atrocities. (3) It turns out the CIA has:

Corrupted democratic elections in Greece, Italy and dozens of other nations;
Been involved to varying degrees in at least 35 assassination plots against foreign heads of state or prominent political leaders. Successful assassinations include democratically elected leaders like Salvador Allende (Chile) and Patrice Lumumba (Belgian Congo); also CIA-created dictators like Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic) and Ngo Dinh Diem (South Vietnam); and popular political leaders like Che Guevara. Unsuccessful attempts range from Fidel Castro to Charles De Gaulle.
Helped launch military coups that toppled democratic governments, replacing them with brutal dictatorships or juntas. The list of overthrown democratic leaders includes Mossadegh (Iran, 1953), Arbenz (Guatemala, 1954), Velasco and Arosemena (Ecuador, 1961, 1963), Bosch (Dominican Republic, 1963), Goulart (Brazil, 1964), Sukarno (Indonesia, 1965), Papandreou (Greece, 1965-67), Allende (Chile, 1973), and dozens of others.
Undermined the governments of Australia, Guyana, Cambodia, Jamaica and more;
Supported murderous dictators like General Pinochet (Chile), the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos (Phillipines), “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier (Haiti), General Noriega (Panama), Mobutu Sese Seko (Ziare), the “reign of the colonels” (Greece), and more;
Created, trained and supported death squads and secret police forces that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, leftists and political opponents, in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Iran, Turkey, Angola and others;
Helped run the “School of the Americas” at Fort Benning, Georgia, which trains Latin American military officers how to overthrow democratic governments. Subjects include the use of torture, interrogation and murder;
Used Michigan State “professors” to train Diem’s secret police in torture;
Conducted economic sabotage, including ruining crops, disrupting industry, sinking ships and creating food shortages;
Paved the way for the massacre of 200,000 in East Timor, 500,000 in Indonesia and one to two million in Cambodia;
Launched secret or illegal military actions or wars in Nicaragua, Angola, Cuba, Laos and Indochina;
Planted false stories in the local media;
Framed political opponents for crimes, atrocities, political statements and embarrassments that they did not commit;
Spied on thousands of American citizens, in defiance of Congressional law;
Smuggled Nazi war criminals and weapon scientists into the U.S., unpunished, for their use in the Cold War;
Created organizations like the World Anti-Communist League, which became filled with ex-Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, Italian terrorists, Japanese fascists, racist Afrikaaners, Latin American death squad leaders, CIA agents and other extreme right-wing militants;
Conducted Operation MK-ULTRA, a mind-control experiment that gave LSD and other drugs to Americans against their will or without their knowledge, causing some to commit suicide;
Penetrated and disrupted student antiwar organizations;
Kept friendly and extensive working relations with the Mafia;
Actively traded in drugs around the world since the 1950s to fund its operations. The Contra/crack scandal is only the tip of the iceberg –- other notorious examples include Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle and Noreiga’s Panama.
Had their fingerprints all over the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X. Even if the CIA is not responsible for these killings, the sheer amount of CIA involvement in these cases demands answers; [editor's note, see: Evidence That the CIA Murdered RFK]
And then routinely lied to Congress about all of the above.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (4) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.”

=Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass

The US Army document, cited above, is an arrogant, imperialistic and ill-considered response to a growing ‘threat’ –but a threat that is posed only to US monopolists and death merchants, i.e., the Military/Industrial Complex, a fancy name for Murder, Inc. The US has, in fact, squandered the limitless goodwill that had been extended our nation at the end of World War II.

The US has failed to make positive use of the world support for allied efforts to codify war crimes, to hold Nazi War Criminals responsibility for heinous crimes. But now –we have a recent US military document that the US Army would prefer to keep secret no doubt because it reveals to the world that those principles espoused at Nuremberg are either no longer operative or they were a fraud, the US didn’t really mean it. Or perhaps they forgot to tell the world that the laws applied to everyone but themselves.

The Army has now revealed to the world that no nation is safe from US terrorism, US attack, US subversion of indigenous cultures and governments, US bullying or the US use of WMD against them. That is because the US believes itself to be a world-wide empire, in fact, a single nation that presumes to rule the world.

The well-informed countries –western Europe –know perfectly well what our game is. General de Gaulle took France out of NATO because he suspected that we were in the empire–building business, and he didn’t want to go along with it yet, simultaneously, France remained an ally in case there was a major war with the Soviets. I don’t think we should take too seriously those eastern European countries. In due course, they will wake up, as Turkey did, that we are dangerous.

-Gore Vidal, The Erosion of the American Dream

I have repeatedly stated that the US regime of George W. Bush was not legitimate. How can I make it any clearer? “Illegitimate” means that the regime of George W. Bush was no more legitimate than the crooked regimes of tin horn dictators in banana republics. The Bush regime differed little in terms of competence or statesmanship. Now, in a cynical document that the US Army had never intended be disseminated publicly, we have confirmation that the position of the US vis a vis the rest of the world is based not upon Democracy or legitimacy. It is, rather based entirely upon force, aggression and US terrorism.

Addendum:

Is the United States going to put dictatorship into effect under the guise of the anti-terrorist struggle? What may trigger another major transformation in 2009? The answer is obvious: another 9/11 in the USA.

Terrible and bloody events are in store for the world in the beginning of 2009. Most likely, the world will witness a reality show with a nuclear blast, which will be used as a reason for the US administration to change the world order again and leave the new Great Depression behind. There is every reason to believe that the Russian Federation may suffer as a result of this possible initiative too.

Joe Biden made a sensational statement on October 19, 2008. He said that Barack Obama would have to undergo an ordeal during the first six months of his stay in the White House. It will be the time of a very serious international crisis, when Obama would have to make tough and possibly unpopular decisions both in home and foreign politics.

Biden said that there were four or five scenarios for the development of the international crisis. Afghanistan, North Korea or the Russian Federation may become the source of one of them.

When Obama learned of Biden’s speech, he tried to explain everything with rhetorical exaggerations. However, Biden’s remarks gave food for thought, taking into consideration the fact that former secretary of state Madeleine Albright described his remarks as statement of fact.

–USA needs nuclear explosion to turn the world into dictatorship

Addendum:
 
A comment amond several found on Buzzflash re this article:

But we already knew the US under sociopathic Bush is a terrorist nation..Bush,Rumsfeld,Rice,Hannity,Limbaugh,Cheney,Bolton,et al are all implicators in this world terrorism by threatening Iraq and Iran.It is certainly a terror to the Iraqui/Iranian people by the US.

My response is that it will be argued in ‘defense’ of the GOP that Bush, Rice et al were just an ‘aberration’. But the SIGNIFICANCE of the Army document is that they were NOT an aberration. It’s the MIC S.O.P.

As I have said numerous times: the Bush administration is illegitimate. Secondly, the MIC is a polite euphemism for a Murder Inc on an international, industrial scale. Death and destruction are the US’s chief exports. Our currency is all but worthless and, like Rome when it invaded Dacia for its gold, the US invades other nations for its resources, primarily oil. At last, The US resembles Rome in that Rome subverted ‘fair wages’ with ’slavery’, in effect, putting working people out of work for good! It became a permanent ‘underclass’. The US has accomplished the same thing by enriching ONLY the uppper one percent of the population –a disparity of both wealth and income that clearly parallels that of Rome in its last throes.

Additional resources:

Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass
Gore Vidal: It’s Time to Take Action Against Our Wars on the Rest of the World
Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes
The five pillars of the U.S. military-industrial complex
Why the CIA is the World’s Number One Terrorist Organization