SUSPICIONS OF FOREKNOWLEDGE: BEWARE THE CORNERED RAT.


By Joseph P. Diaferia
June 21, 2002

In the period of national mourning following the September 11 attacks, public suggestion of U.S. government negligence or complicity in the attacks would have been an apostasy to most Americans. The blind trust and faith in the American “leadership” was such that only a resident of the Vatican might be attributed the degree of inerrancy that Mr. Bush has enjoyed.

However, to many progressive critics of U.S. policy there seemed a frightening inevitability to recent revelations that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of the worst disaster in U.S. history. What made such a prospect frightening? A man who seized the presidency via voter suppression and fraud, who as governor of Texas executed more people than any other governor in U.S. history, who once quipped: “it would be a lot easier if I were dictator”, and whose grandparents were major benefactors of Hitler’s Third Reich, would soon have to resort to desperate damage control and subterfuge to conceal his own criminal negligence—or quite possibly, an act of treason.

The inauguration of the “war on terrorism” has brought many ominous statements from highly placed government officials including presidential spokesman Ari Fleisher, who warned that journalists “had better watch what they say and [watch] what they write”. Roughly, a month after the attacks, in a public statement the president himself warned against “outrageous” conspiracy theories. Would such warnings have been necessary from an administration that had nothing to hide? When Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle proposed an inquiry into the massive failure of U.S. military intelligence on the morning September 11, 2001, the vice-president responded with the absurdity that such an endeavor would siphon energy and resources from the war, thereby aiding the enemy. Many statements from administration officials should have evoked some suspicion among Americans of a cover-up of some form. The sudden intensive reportage among corporate media that began in early May, should not have been the only means through which the public would begin to suspect U.S. government mendacity. Nevertheless, it is helpful that members of Congress and some mainstream media have finally begun to raise serious questions about the secretive nature of government activity in the weeks prior to the attacks.


While the vindication of analyses made by certain dissident critics may provide a respite from scornful accusations of conspiracy paranoia, one takes little solace in having to speculate as to what such an exposé in mainstream journalism might bring. The USA Patriot Act, as codified law, is intended merely to provide a veneer of legislative inclusion and oversight. For the Bush administration’s purposes, the repressive provisions of the Act could have been effectuated more easily by executive ukase. Under Article I, Section IX of the U.S. Constitution, the president may suspend the writ of habeas corpus—intended to protect Americans from arbitrary arrest—and declare martial law. No congressional ratification is necessary for such an undertaking (Most surprising to this writer is that there was no immediate constitutional revocation on the day of the attack. Perhaps the president’s comical state hopping expedition aboard Air Force One is something to be thankful for!). Indeed there was such a plan devised during the Reagan Administration. Code-named Rex Alpha 84, the National Security Council developed a plan to suspend the American Constitution in the event of a “national emergency” which would have allowed the president of the United States to rule by decree. In this instance, the “national emergency” would likely have been a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua and the public protests that were sure to follow.


“BUT WE ARE FIGHTING TERRORISTS; AREN’T WE?”

The recent introduction of U.S. military forces to central Asia as part of a war against terrorism is the realization of a campaign that has been gradually conceptualized by elite American operatives for the better part of a decade. In his book “The Grand Chessboard”, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski warns of how American world pre-eminence would be undermined without the conquest and confiscation of the natural resources—namely petroleum—of central Asia. He also comments that only the fear of an external threat would be sufficient to prompt the American people into accepting the large-scale military commitment that would be necessary for the US leadership to achieve its goals.

In recent weeks, the administration has sought unprecedented expansion and consolidation of the agencies of U.S. national security. Of course, many believe that these measures are intended to provide the American people with a greater measure of security. However, these initiatives are being authored by an administration that believes (correctly) that it has a great deal to conceal, and whose web of secrecy may be unraveling. Furthermore, the political and social unrest that would obviously result from a global war, and the widening chasm between the world’s wealthy and poor also indicate—from a capitalist class perspective—the need for greater and more repressive state power.

The enormous resistance to capitalist globalization that we have witnessed in recent years is a clear indication of the vulnerability of capitalism itself. While this is certainly not a surprising phenomenon to political progressives, many Americans who might otherwise consider themselves apolitical, must surely have taken note of the courage and militant determination with which anti-globalists took to the streets in recent years in Seattle, Montreal and Genoa. The mass mobilization against capitalism is obviously a very unsettling development to the ruling class. Therefore, the American people have every reason to fear and resist the actions of a class whose power may be beginning to erode.

However, at this particular moment in history, the people of the world must be equally wary of the present guardians of this system—to wit: America’s “first family”. The Bush family history is a saga of squalid criminality. From its congenial ties to the Nazi regime, to the apparent complicity in the worst disaster in American history, the Bushes have every reason to want to insulate themselves from inquiries—official or otherwise—that would most certainly render their name synonymous with diabolical despotism. Indeed, the “reputations” of certain Bush personages might be relegated to the already overflowing sewer of U.S. history if—in addition to the serious questions relating to September 11, 2001—any of the following questions were ever raised in a public forum:

1.) “Mr. President, is it true that your grandfather Prescott Bush knowingly served as a money launderer for the Nazis?”

2.) “Mr. President, can you explain why it is not common knowledge to most Americans that the Bushes knew perfectly well that Brown Brothers was the American money channel into Nazi Germany, and that Union Bank was the secret pipeline to bring the Nazi money back to America from Holland?”


3.) “Mr. Bush, how would you respond to a report that Prescott Bush was a director of a New York bank where rich Germans who supported the Nazis stashed millions in personal wealth?”

4.) “Mr. President, has your father ever discussed with you his activity in the early 70's when he worked with David Rockefeller in promoting a worldwide depopulation program?”

5.) “Mr. President, was it not the Reagan-Bush administration that armed, trained and financed Usama bin Laden, and deliberately built up Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan into a force to be reckoned with?”

6.) “Sir, could you explain your administration’s numerous direct ties to vaccine and drug manufacturers; why so many of your cabinet members are former drug company executives; and could you explain if there is any connection between these ties and your family’s seventy year long documented involvement with eugenics and population control?”

7.) “Mr. President, how can you characterize your domestic agenda as "compassionate conservatism", when it was formulated by the CIA's Manhattan Institute?”

8.) “Mr. Bush, is the Manhattan Institute not a right wing think tank founded by former CIA director William Casey who helped bring thousands of former Nazis to the US following WWII?”

9.) “Sir, would you care to elaborate on a report that you, your father and brothers Jeb and Neil, have 25 super secret bank accounts worldwide, through which you have laundered tens of billions of dollars of illicit funds from drug trafficking from weapons smuggling, and clandestine and illegal gold smuggling overseas?”

10.) “Mr. President, could you share with the American people the series of real estate frauds, bank swindles, and other reputed massive rip-offs, perpetrated by you and your brothers, which have caused the taxpayers and innocent parties billions and billions of dollars?”

11.) “Mr. President, is it true that just before his fatal take-off, you were near the New Jersey airport where JFK Jr. kept his plane? If so, why?

12.) “Mr. President, Why, in January 2001, did your administration issue orders to the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Usama bin Laden's relatives?”

13.) “Sir, how do you respond to a report in the French newspaper Le Figaro, that Usama bin laden met with the CIA while being treated in a hospital in Dubai and was then free to leave?”

14.) “Mr. President, do you care to comment on your father’s recurring amnesia when asked of his whereabouts on November 22, 1963?”

15.) “Sir, is it true that you, your father, and your brothers are personally acquainted with would be presidential assassin John W. Hinckley and his brother Scott?”


While one is not seriously proposing that each and every one of these questions be raised in a nationally televised public hearing, it must be known to people worldwide that, here is a presidential family that bears one of the vilest histories the world has ever known. Moreover, if the Bush family could lower itself to the tactics that it did to restore itself to the presidency, imagine what it could resort to in order to silence serious opposition!


HOW CAN YOU COMPARE THE U.S. TO THE NAZIS?

It is neither improper nor an exercise in historical gymnastics to liken the developments since September 2001 to the rise of the Third Reich. Both the Bush administration and Hitler’s regime benefited from a wave of recriminatory nationalism. Both regimes benefited from a catalytic event to rally the masses to their respective causes. Hitler’s repression of opposition and dissent began in the same subtle manner as Bush’s. Both leaders presided over mass military re-armament; both acted with massive militarily force on behalf of their class’s predatory designs; both scapegoated and persecuted subsets of their populations (to say the least); and finally, both Hitler and Bush became chancellor and president respectively, in spite of losing presidential elections.

In December 1932, three candidates ran for president of Germany: Incumbent Conservative Field Marshall von Hindenburg, Communist Party candidate Ernst Thaelmann, and Nazi Party candidate Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg won the election, and in January 1933, after a coalescence of right-wing parties behind the Nazis, invited Hitler to become chancellor. In the 1932, the Nazis captured a mere 37.3 percent of the vote—the highest they had ever won in a national election.

We all know what happened in the U.S. presidential election of 2000.


COULD GORE HAVE DONE ANY BETTER?

When apologists for the Bush administration are challenged, some frequently ask: “Would Gore have handled [the Sept. 11 saga] any better?” This question is too hypothetical, and from a working class perspective, entirely irrelevant. The former vice-president represents a faction of the ruling class whose interests lie primarily in Colombian petroleum, unlike the present administration whose bosses prefer the Middle East as a venue for an oil war. A Gore administration would likely have flown the banner of the “war of drugs” as its battle cry to send young American men and women off to South America as human cannon fodder. Therefore, as president, Gore would not have needed the September 11 spectacular, and the inculpation of America’s wild-eyed adversaries as a promotional gimmick. Of course, the result would have been no different: hundreds of thousands dead, a decimated civilian infrastructure, and a defiled ecology—all of which typify the REAL history of the United States.

Indeed, diabolical acts are not peculiar to Republican administrations. Democrat Bill Clinton—in addition to bringing the cesspool of Arkansas politics to Washington—ordered the destruction of what remained of Yugoslavia, destroyed fifty percent of Sudan’s capacity to produce pharmaceuticals (on the moronic pretext that Usama bin Laden might be developing chemical weapons there), and resumed aerial strikes against Iraqi civilians, all of which brought the deaths of thousands of people (What can be said of a government that could turn only to Clinton’s dalliance with an intern as sufficient cause for his impeachment?). Democrat Lyndon Johnson oversaw the bombing of Vietnam and the deaths of millions of innocent Vietnamese civilians. Democrat John F. Kennedy authorized the invasion of Cuba by CIA trained Cuban counterrevolutionaries. Kennedy also countenanced the first deployment of chemical weapons upon Vietnamese civilians. In addition, in what is arguably the most ghastly act of cowardice in human history, Democrat Harry S. Truman ordered the use of atomic weapons against Japanese citizens, killing hundreds of thousands.


COULD THE U.S. EVER HURT ITS OWN PEOPLE?

In America, it is widely held—even among many progressives—that the U.S. government is incapable of harming its own people. First, such doubt ignores the tens of thousands of U.S. service men and women sent to their deaths in overseas military actions taken on behalf of U.S. commerce. Secondly, it should be recalled that on August 31, 1983, the Reagan Administration sat idly by and allowed Soviet interceptors to shoot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 that had accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace. Many Americans, including U.S. Representative Larry McDonald were aboard Flight 007, which originated in Anchorage, Alaska. The attack was conveniently parlayed into an anti-Soviet propaganda campaign by the administration.

Let us also consider the various “experiments” that have been conducted on unsuspecting Americans by the U.S. government: In 1950, the U.S. military decanted aerosolized bacteria upon the population of San Francisco, resulting in many serious illnesses and the death of at least one person. During the 1950s and 1960s, there were deliberate releases of radioactive gasses from a weapons factory in Washington State, followed by secret medical monitoring of the downwind civilian population. In the late 1940s, hundreds of Americans were secretly injected with plutonium (the single most toxic substance to the human body) by government scientists. From the 1940s through the 1960s government scientists sprayed infectious bacilli in over two hundred major population centers, including New York, St. Louis and Minneapolis; and of course, there is the U.S. government’s involvement in drug-trafficking—a matter of congressional public record—that continues to this day.


“WELL, WHAT DO WE DO?”

The U.S. death toll resulting from the terrorist attacks is both horrendous and unprecedented. However, to an administration that seeks to earn its place in American history as the one that finally destroyed all of the America’s enemies, its “Pearl Harbor” could not have come at a more propitious moment. American military brinkmanship in central Asia and the repressive measures that have been taken domestically are not solely in response to America’s “New Day of Infamy”. These events, including the theft of the 2000 election and the terrorist attacks themselves were carefully timed and planned by a family that cannot and will not allow any other to be the standard-bearer for U.S. capitalism.

The solution is not to launch a massive voter registration campaign in the hope of electing a Gore, a Gephardt or a Lieberman to the presidency. After all, with very few courageous exceptions, the Democrats have followed in sheepishly locked step with the post September 11 insanity. The unconditional loyalty of fellow Republicans and the un-shifting cowardice of congressional Democrats have been the Bush administrations most valuable allies. The masses must unite and work to replace the very system that gives us such abominable political choices, and that has brought such a wide dimension of human suffering. As this writer has argued in the past, education and dissemination of information is vital. However, the sinister nature of the current Bush presidency and the decidedly fascist orientation of the Bush family as a whole makes task of the masses is that much more difficult. Even more dangerous, is that the Bush family may now faced with a great deal of explaining to do.

With all due respect, to U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, only a mass popular movement can raise to necessary questions to ultimately end the Bush administration’s and the capitalist class’s war OF propaganda and their war AGAINST the people of the world.

While we must beware the cornered rat, we must organize and act as though our lives depend upon our success—indeed our lives do.