How to Live with a Rogue SuperPower
Date: Monday, March 24 @ 11:33:00 UTC Topic: RogueState
By WAYNE MADSEN, counterpunch.org
The nations of the world must learn how to cope with living on the same planet with a regime that has resurrected the Nazi war strategy of "blitzkrieg" (lightning war) by adopting the concept of pre-emptive "shock and awe" military strikes. Make no mistake about it, the Bush regime, which came to power through a manipulative election process and then conveniently used a domestic terrorist attack to seize unconstitutional powers, will stop at nothing from remaking the world according to its own concept of a "new world order" subservient to the United States.
The nations of the world would do well to emulate the United States and its allies in containing the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The final aim of the Soviet Union was a worldwide communist federation. A few neo-conservative political alchemists have brewed up a new ideological concoction that combines elements of unilateral militarism, fundamentalist Christianity, Zionism, and fascism. They plan to spread this political philosophy around the world using the military might of the United States. Therefore, the world must be on guard against a dangerous political movement that has nested in the U.S. government and uses the U.S. military and intelligence-gathering prowess to advance its dangerous agenda. The international community must contain the United States and its sordid agenda.
Some nations have already responded to the Bush regime's bombast and threats. North Korea's nuclear program was under United Nations supervision until Bush included the North in his "Axis of Evil." The North Koreans scrapped a policy of détente forged by the South Koreans and the Clinton administration and resumed its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang fears it is next for an attack. But Iran is also in the sights of the Bush regime.
When it was included in Bush's "Axis," it accelerated its own nuclear weapons program. Already, the neo-conservatives have suggested the U.S. military thrust into Iraq soon make a right-turn into Iran to eliminate its government and nuclear program. In fact, the Bush regime secured Iraq's oil fields before it struck at Iraq's chemical weapons facilities in Nasariyah. This decision belies all the Bush regime's constant propaganda about the danger posed by Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." It was always the purpose of the Bush regime to seize Iraq's oil. On that issue, it was on the very same page as Saddam Hussein, who warned the world that this was the real goal of the oil-centric Bush regime. A few stray U.S. "precision-guided" missiles struck Iran near its Abadan oil complex. Considering the agenda of the neo-conservatives, this was probably a belligerent "shot across the bow" and no mistake. Iran is the next target of opportunity for the Bush regime. It has made no secret that it wants to place the Shah of Iran's son back on the Peacock Throne of an neo-imperial Iran that would be vassal state of America.
Cuba, fearing an impending U.S. action with the prodding of the dangerous right-wing elements in Florida who propelled George W. Bush into the White House and his brother Jeb into the State House in Tallahassee, has begun rounding up dissidents who have been in contact with U.S. Interests Section personnel in Havana. The U.S. Interests Section in Havana should be sent packing by Fidel Castro.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, knowing full well that the Bush regime tried to oust him in a made-in-Washington uprising almost one year ago to gain control over Venezuela's oil wealth, is arresting political and labor leaders who backed the coup. He is wise to do so.
The decision by Mexico and Chile to refuse to support the U.S. resolution in the U.N. Security Council means they will come under intense Bush regime pressure. The intelligence services of these countries must be on guard against the activities of U.S. intelligence operatives, particularly those of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). U.S. Defense Attaches, who work for the DIA, must be closely watched and their visits to military bases should be barred. Similarly, Guinea and Cameroon should be wary of U.S.-backed subversion among domestic ethnic and religious groups. Certain groups in these countries should be on guard against attempts by U.S. covert operators to fan the flames of their own grievances against their governments. These groups, which have legitimate complaints against their own governments, should, nevertheless, open a line of communications with their capitals to ensure the Bush regime does not try to stage a rebellion or an "incident" to punish these nations for their lack of support in the U.N.
It is no secret that Russia, China, Brazil, and France,among others, are making military contingency plans that include the possibility of military conflict with the United States. Nothing shoud be taken for granted with a Bush regime that clearly is under the influence of religious suicidal cultists who literally believe the apocryphal events described in the biblical Book of Revelations are soon going to happen.
But these efforts are clearly not enough. To contain the Bush regime, the international community of nations, including the United Nations and regional blocs, must take the same steps that the West took against the Soviet bloc.
National intelligence, counter-intelligence, and law enforcement agencies that should have already identified U.S. diplomats in embassies and consulates who are, in fact, intelligence and law enforcement agents, should limit their travels to a 25-mile radius of their diplomatic missions. These agents should also be barred from sensitive military, government, and critical infrastructure installations. No restrictions should be placed on the many U.S. diplomats who are opposed to the policies of the Bush regime and who may serve as valuable sources of information on the future destabilizing military, political, and economic plans of the regime.
Customs officials should carefully inspect incoming American diplomatic pouches that might contain electronic surveillance equipment. A number of U.S. diplomatic missions host Special Collection Elements for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Satellite dishes atop U.S. compounds transmit captured communications and other signals, via encrypted channels, to the NSA and the Special Collection Service where the intercepts are processed, analyzed, and stored in Echelon "Dictionary" databases and a frequency database called RASIN (radio-signal notations).
U.S. naval visits should be banned. A number of U.S. Navy ships come equipped with Direct Support Units, sophisticated electronic surveillance units that are designed to identify critical frequencies and pick up signals while in port. These signals are transmitted to NSA and fed into the databases described above. It is difficult to ascertain what vessels contain such units since they are often relatively portable and can be moved from one ship to another.
Nations shuold pull out of U.S. military and law enforcement training programs. These programs, such as International Military Education and Training, (IMET), Enhanced IMET, Joint Combined Education and Training (JCET), and regional programs like the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas), Africa Crisis Operations Training and Assistance Program, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the George Marshall European Center for Security Studies, the Asia-Pacific Center, the FBI's International Law Enforcement Academies in Budapest and Bangkok, are used to identify agents of influence and pry into military and counter-espionage capabilities and other secrets.
Countries hosting the headquarters of international organizations should sweep their premises for U.S. listening devices, computer surveillance software, and other espionage tools. A U.S. "surge" surveillance operation against missions to the United Nations in New York and the European Commission in Brussels was recently discovered. Care should be taken in not using the counter-espionage services of the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, and Japan until the governments of these nations are replaced by ones opposed to the Bush regime's policies.
Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, and other countries should immediately expel U.S. customs and immigration agents. These personnel are now part of the Department of Homeland Security, which now has a significant espionage mission. These agents are now charged with collecting political information on foreign citizens and feeding that information into U.S. databases containing "lookout" and black lists on non-terrorists who are merely opposed to U.S. policies. Expelling such individuals will make it harder for the Bush regime to amass political information on people abroad who are exercising their constitutional rights in their own countries.
Nations should cancel all military, intelligence, and law enforcement exchange programs with the United States. These include defense expositions, air shows, and personnel exchange programs. These programs are being misused in order to gather intelligence on the military and other defensive and offensive capabilities of neutrals, friends, and allies.
Nations should ensure that the United States has no direct access to sensitive domestic economic, statistical, and financial tracking computer networks. This will prevent any attempt by the Bush regime to destabilize monetary, banking, and stock exchange systems to further its aims.
Nations should strictly examine the purpose of U.S. research and development academic exchanges, especially in the areas of nuclear research, missile defense, avionics, genetics, digital communications, and other areas where the United States military-industrial complex is seeking to exploit foreign scientific expertise for military purposes. Nations should develop their own independent means of broadcasting international news. The White House, Pentagon, and State Department have established sophisticated propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation programs to spread false and slanted news stories around the world. The U.S. State Department established a unit during the Cold War that immediately refuted Soviet disinformation and forgeries placed in the international media. Considering the use of false intelligence and plagiarized academic papers and articles by the United States during the U.N. Security Council debate on Iraq, nations should establish their own units within their Foreign Ministries to refute such propaganda and disinformation. Television and radio networks should rely on independent sources for their news since CNN, Fox, Sky News, ABC, NBC, and CBS are all now embedded in U.S. military units and do the bidding of their military and corporate handlers.
Media networks should also ban running advertisements produced by the U.S. State Department. These are part of a Bush regime advertising campaign designed to place a "happy face" on its xenophobic, racist, and fascist domestic policies aimed at foreign visitors and legal residents, as well as naturalized citizens. In particular, State Department ads, disguised as documentaries, that portray Arab and Muslim-Americans living in peace and harmony should be strictly avoided. Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese, and Egyptian television networks have already refused to run these commercials.
These measures and others were once taken by a democratic America that sought to free captive and subjugated nations and peoples from the yoke of Communism. That America no longer exists. By taking concrete action against the dangerous regime that has seized control over a super power, turning it into a virtual rogue state, the nations of the world might help restore a democratic and cooperative government in Washington. Until that day comes, every nation from Cuba to France, Turkey to Nigeria, India to New Zealand, and Russia to South Korea, must remain vigilant and take immediate measures to protect their national sovereignty from a menacing Bush regime.
|
|