General Zinni Exposes the Neo-Cons Quote: "Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America." ~Thomas Paine http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/paine/p1.htm Quote: "An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot." Thomas Paine Quote: NeoCons and the Media(2) Col. Ogden Jones visits the panel and forcasts a grim future for the National Guard. Also visiting is Mitchell Szczepenczyk from Chicago Indymedia and Chicago Media Action. http://www.archive.org/details/NeoConsandtheMedia2 Female Panel Host: Why did you think they did not find allies like during the Gulf War, what's your opinion on this? Col. Ogden Jones, US Army, Retired: Well, number one, in the Gulf War the magazines were full. We had round after round of negotiations between all of the nations of the world. We went back and forth, back and forth, between all of the major allies. In this war, we never consulted at all with our major allies, we just gave them an accomplished fact. We got our resolution through congress, and many congressmen that supported that resolution assumed, wrongly, that this would be the prelude to serious negotiations with NATO and with the United Nations. But it just didn't happen. The Neo-Conservatives were hell bent on a war and they're gonna have it no matter what. And they cooked up the intelligence, I have to think it was a dishonest attempt, it wasn't a mistake, it was a dishonest attempt, they wanted to get in there by any means possible, so they jumped on the Weapons of Mass Destruction. And the other nations wouldn't have it. People claim that the United Nations is too slow. I maintain that the United Nations is doing exactly the job that they were set up to do. They are supposed to be a cautionary group, a group that is the best minds in the world, and they are supposed to get in there and only use war as a last resort. We used this as a first resort. Rick Stahlhut, MD: You know, Mr. Jones, you mentioned the Neo-Conservatives and the fact that you felt that that group of Neo-Conservatives really drove the agenda, and interestingly, we have something that we can watch here from 60 Minutes last Sunday, May 23. I think it says May 28th on the rolling but it's really May 23. They were talking with General Zinni. Maybe you could tell the folks at home who General Zinni is? Col. Jones: Well, General Zinni came into prominence long after I left the Army, but I've read about him, I admire the man tremendously because not only is he a respected and successful military leader, but he is a skilled and successful diplomat. He has been used in countless situations where they wanted to have this country represented by a wise man with a military background. What he has to say bears a lot of listening to. Dr. Stahlhut: Well, and he took the place of Norman Schwarzkopv, correct? Col. Jones: That's correct. Dr. Stahlhut: So CENTCOM, or Central Command, as I understand, are the folks that actually are running the whole show. Col Jones: That is correct. Under the current national defense setup, you have from the Secretary of Defense down through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , and then, underneath them, worldwide, you have a series of unified commands. That's the terminology they use to describe the defense setup. Our Strategic Air Command is a unified command, of sorts. We have unified commands in Europe. We had a unified command fighting the Korean War. In this particular case, the head of the Army, Navy, and Air Force in the unified command is not only responsible to all of the services, but is also responsible for the whole region, which, in this case, encompasses Afghanistan and Iraq. So he's got a full slate. Dr. Stahlhut: And he was head of that operation from 97-2000? Col. Jones: That's right. So he knows the area intimately, and he knows how the setup is supposed to work. Dr. Stahlhut: So maybe we should watch and see what he had to say on 60 Minutes on how the Neo-Conservatives in Washington drove us into that war. General Zinni: They were given the responsibility that this was their war. And from everything I understand they promoted it and pushed it, certain elements in there, certainly, even to the point of creating their own intelligence to match their need, then they should bear the responsibility. But regardless of who's responsibility I think it is, somebody has screwed up. And at this level and at this stage it should be evident to everybody that they've screwed up. And who's heads are rolling on this? That's what bothers me most. 60 Minutes Interviewer: There are no heads rolling. General Zinni: That's my problem. If you charge me with the responsibility of taking this nation to war, if you charge me with implementing that policy, with creating the strategy that convinces me to go to war, and I fail you, then I ought to go. 60 Minutes Interviewer: Who specifically are you talking about? General Zinni: Well, it starts at the top. If you're the Secretary of Defense, and your responsible for that, if you're responsible for that planning ant that execution, if you assume responsibility for the other elements, no military, non security, political, economical, social and everything else, then you bear responsibility. Certainly those in the ranks that foisted this strategy on us that is flawed, certainly they need to be gone and replaced. 60 Minutes Voiceover: Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the administration known as the Neo-Conservatives, that saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region, and strengthen the position of Israel. They include deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Fife, former defense policy board member Richard Pearl, National Security Council member Elliot Abrahms, and Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked America's policy in Iraq. 60 Minutes interviewer: You think they are the architects of this? General Zinni: I think they are. I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. Everybody that I've talked to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they're trying to do. In one article in which I mentioned Neo-Conservatives - and they call themselves Neo-Conservatives - I was called Anti-Semetic. It's unbelievable that those are the kinds of personal attacks that are won when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were, I certainly don't know what their ethnic-religious backgrounds are, and I'm not interested. I know what strategy they promoted, and openly, and for a number of years, and what they've convinced the President and the Secretary to do, and I don't believe that there is any serious political leader, military leader, diplomat in Washington that doesn't know where it came from. http://www.archive.org/details/NeoConsandtheMedia2
Eh, this'll just get dismissed by those who love the Bush Administration as usual. It doesn't matter what you show em even if you had the power to turn back time and make em invisible to see with their own eyes what those corrupt PNAC guys were doing. And anti-semite.. heh, typical. - N
Or Baron Max will take 3 words of what he said and say, these words are uncorrectly punctuated and don't flow correctly so it must be wrong. Or something along those lines..
Who's General Zinni? I mean, is he the ONE who knows all, sees all and hear all? Is the only one that we should listen? Or should we listen to many, generals and others, then form our opinions? Or should we just listen to this ONE general, and form our opinions based on ONLY his words and thoughts? Baron Max Baron Max
America exists to serve Zionist interests, seems also to be part of this mind-set. We are their piggy bank and provide manpower/weaponry for their exploits. In essence we serve as slave labor through the bleeding of our tax dollars and lives lost in exploits, such as in Iraq. Increasingly Democrats and Republicans fall under their spell (through financial contributions) and play their role as assigned, with total disregard to the Constitutional safe-guard of the separation of church and state. The rest of the world must agree or will be labeled anti-Semitic and wherever they can get countries to pass anti-Semitism laws, those who oppose them openly will be fined and jailed. That is what this humble group must face with our sling-shots as we fight Goliath Israel and its propaganderized minions. The problem is that though Zionism is largely a Jewish enterprise in bed with certain cultish Christian groups and intra-national business interests, many Jews do not subscribe to this and fight as actively as we do to expose and derail the plan. Separating the wheat from the chaff is not always easy though, because even groups that seem reasonable can sell out, if Zionists infiltrate and confuse the issue. However, bottom line - Israel stole the nuclear plans from us and sold them to China (which shows they are allied) - and then there's India etc. etc. The new world order is just that - global in scope with nuclear proliferation growing by the minute. If we don't get a handle on this soon, all our gooses are cooked.
The world of the new millennium has but one global superpower and one which maintains absolute global hegemony. This nation, or perhaps more appropriately – empire, is the United States of America. At its helm is an administration with an extremely radical and dangerous agenda. The policy advisors behind the Presidency of George W Bush are of the neo-conservatives. These are the remnants and supporters of President Ronald Reagan’s Republican administration. These individuals are fundamentalists who embrace an extreme ideology that includes an inherent belief that it is their Gods will that America pursue a divine crusade to spread throughout the world Americanized concepts of capitalism, freedom, democracy, family values and lifestyle choices. They possess dubious if not dangerous moral and ethical principals and hold in reverence the socio/political ideology of philosopher Levi Strauss. As well as their Christian fundamentalist religious beliefs they adhere to archaic political ideologies which resemble plutocratic rather than democratic government. Given the calibre of such powerful and influential individuals within the Bush administration, including others from such think tanks as PNAC (Project for a New American Century) and the American Enterprise Institute, such as Dick Chenney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz to name but a few, it is not difficult to question that which would ordinarily be considered unthinkable. Could the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 have been an act of collusion involving the United States administration? Crucially important questions such as; 1. Why did the United States Air Force fail to scramble interceptor jets – in defiance of all long-standing regulations and practices – for almost two hours after it was known that an unprecedented four planes had been high jacked? 2. How could the world’s most powerful military fail to react throughout a prolonged attack on the financial capital of the world? 3. How did the FBI know the exact identities of the highjackers within 24 hours of the attacks? If they were known, why weren’t they apprehended earlier? FBI agents had raised the alarm regarding well known Al- Qaeda members attending US flight schools and had been ignored. 4. Why did Donald Rumsfeld call for a war on Iraq the next morning after the attacks? 5. Why did two squadrons of fighter jets at Andrews’s air Force base, 19 kilometres from Washington not scramble to defend the White House? 6. Why did Bush sit for half an hour in a Florida classroom after his chief of staff informed him about the second plane? Why did he pretend that he that he first learned of the attacks in that classroom, when he had actually been briefed that morning? 7. Why has there been no public investigation into the billions of dollars “earned” by insider trading of United Airlines stocks before September 11? 8. Why was the collapse of the twin towers more reminiscent of a demolition than the impact of an airliner? 9. Where are the pictures of aircraft hitting the Pentagon? Where is the large debris? Almost invariably the engine blocks of commercial aircraft remain largely intact after impact.
The neoconservatives' joining of the Republican Party in late 1960s, proves to be pivotal for their own political and intellectual dominance in Washington. The neoconservatives, however, have never strayed far from their ideological Trotskyite root which mistrusts openness and transparency, and despises the desire of other nations for a genuine cultural and patriotic identity. For the neoconservatives, Iraq had to be targeted, not because of its natural resources, but mainly because the Iraqis were considered a spirited and cultural people, displaying pride, patriotism, and independent thinking. Consequently, since late 1970s the neoconservatives have considered Iraqi cultural and social institutions a threat to their design for Iraq and the entire Arab World. Contrary to commonly projected media observations, the neoconservatives have not stumbled in Iraq. Rather, they follow a well orchestrated plan that keeps Iraq in perpetual turmoil while maintaining the presence of American troops in the country and the region. Indeed, as the Guardian reported (September 3, 2002), for the neoconservatives bringing instability and chaos to Iraq and the entire Middle East is desirable as it demonstrates that “everything is going according to plan.” In the international media there is a disproportional emphasis on how the neoconservatives have manipulated intelligence information to shore up the support for invading Iraq and how they have positioned Iraqi exiled individuals to assume the leading role in the country to the detriment of the home–grown leadership. While both issues are important, the neoconservatives have cleverly created conditions for polarizing and fragmenting Iraqi society. Through relentless efforts and careful planning, they have managed not only to sell their schemes to their Iraqi political appointees, but also to lure religious and social authorities into their traps.
The neoconservatives, immediately after the invasion, were not delighted to find out that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi population, the Arabs, were united irrespective of sectarian affiliation and that the religious authority swiftly denounced looting and anarchy. In particular, the neoconservatives did not expect a home-grown leadership asserting its role in major cities and calling for unity, open elections, and an end to the occupation. The neoconservatives were adamant that the Iraqis should have less voice in managing and determining their future. The occupational authority was primarily run by hard line neoconservative (e.g., Michael Rubin, Dan Senor, Larry Diamond, Harold Rhode, Simone Leeden, James Steele, Michael Fleischer, Michael Mobbs, Walter Slocombe, etc.). Along with influential neoconservatives in Washington, these individuals were instrumental in steering the course of events in Iraq to mirror the neoconservatives’ design. Larry Diamond, a neoconservative and a senior member of the occupational authority, revealed that the occupational authority embarked on three strategies: empowering the ethnic minority, weakening any emerging home-growing political movement, and encouraging the in-fighting among Arab political organizations.
The cooptation strategy seems to function well on different fronts. The neoconservatives have been able to successfully induce their loyalists (Ahmed Chalabi, Lieth Kuba, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Moufaq Al-Rebuey, etc.) to be close to the religious authority in Najaf and purposefully provide them with slanted information. Their efforts appear to be successful in convincing the religious authority to stay away from matters of national significance......... The strategy of spreading fear has proven to be highly effective in Iraq. Emboldened and powerful, the neoconservatives do not conceal their intention or the necessity of using force to achieve their objectives, along with a highly orchestrated propaganda campaign. Michael Leeden, a leading neoconservative, wrote that “We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize.”
