Thursday, March 20, 2003

Know Your Enemy QUOTE OF THE DAY "We're trying to ask the same great questions, like: How can a superpower today influence history for the better?  We established this overarching ideology for so long that allowed us to justify anything, and that ideology was containment.  In some ways, what I'm trying to argue is a new sort of containment-a containment of the new bad places and the desire to shrink them." - - Thomas P.M. Barnett, U.S. Naval War College RHINO HERE: As Americans, we have  a responsibility to stand up for the things that have made America great. The American legacy left us by the founding fathers. Everything the constitution stands for. There are powers that be nowadays that are telling us that there is so much reason to fear, that the only way through is to push the constitution aside. Give up the freedoms expressed in the constitution.   Those same powers want to say that the world has changed and that we need a new game plan. For their new plan, they have pre-emptive attacks in mind. Country by country military dominance.  This isn't new. This is the same ol' schtick. The current government in Israel is about a half a century old. In the context of the history of the Middle East, a drop in the bucket.  Army after army has come through with military dominance and controlled the area for a century or two here, and a century or two there. Same ol shit. The Turks, the Romans, the Greeks, the Nubians then the Turks again, round and round, who did I forget?   Many people believe that 9/11/01, having generated an amazing out pouring of sympathy for America (Remember the French headlines, "We Are All Americans"), could have been a turning point in world cooperation and maybe even compassion & understanding. But the shrub gang had other plans. So today, on this pivotal day, I offer a collage of amazing articles to let you know of the plans of: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen,  Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman,Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz. These are the people designing the new world order. For the first time since the fall of communism, they have the power to establish a new world hegemony. They are not politicians. They are not responsive to democratic pressure. They are theoreticians and ideologues who lose nothing if they fail, and gain everything if they win. "Visit" their web site. Read their Statement of Principles. http://www.newamericancentury.org  In addition to the move toward unilateral control of the Middle East they have: - engineered a break from the Kyoto environmental treaty. - refused to ratify an international war crimes commission. - are planning to build "small strike" nuclear weapons that will break all international nuclear treaties. - are writing a "refinement" of the Patriot Act that will add draconian power to domestic control. For these people, acting against world opinion is a crucial experiment--to test how far they can push the unilateral deployment of American military power at home and abroad. Their goal: to establish new spheres of influence in the Middle East, eventually revisit South and Central America.Their experiment has begun in earnest. THE BOTTOM LINE is their game plan, clearly laid out by Thomas P.M. Barnett,  adviser to the Department of Defense & professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.  Here's Esquire's lead line: Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world-and a military strategy to accompany it.  Now there's a leading contender.  It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them.  Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community.  Now he gives it to you. 9:00:20 AM    comment

THE BOTTOM LINE - Pentagon's New Map THE BOTTOM LINE THE PENTAGON'S NEW MAP IT EXPLAINS WHY WE'RE GOING TO WAR,  AND WHY WE'LL KEEP GOING TO WAR.   BY THOMAS P.M. BARNETT, Esquire, March 2003 issue   LET ME TELL YOU why military engagement with Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad is not only necessary and inevitable, but good.   When the United States finally goes to war again in the Persian Gulf, it will not constitute a settling of old scores, or just an enforced disarmament of illegal weapons, or a distraction in the war on terror.  Our next war in the Gulf will mark a historical tipping point-the moment when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.   That is why the public debate about this war has been so important:  It forces Americans to come to terms with I believe is the new security paradigm that shapes this age, namely, Disconnectedness defines danger.  Saddam Hussein's outlaw regime is dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world, from its rule sets, its norms, and all the ties that bind countries together in mutually assured dependence.   The problem with most discussion of globalization is that too many experts treat it as a binary outcome:  Either it is great and sweeping the planet, or it is horrid and failing humanity everywhere.  Neither view really works, because globalization as a historical process is simply too big and too complex for such summary judgments.  Instead, this new world must be defined by where globalization has truly taken root and where it has not... THIS IN DEPTH, COUNTRY BY COUNTRY EVALUATION WITH GRAPHICS IS POSTED AT: http://www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/ThePentagonsNewMap.htm "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 8:44:30 AM    comment

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