Secret powers operating in plain sight

By Mike Green

It seemed to be a perfectly logical question. Why would a man, John Negroponte, resign from a position atop 16 secret spy agencies in the most powerful nation on earth and join the U.S. State Department as the No. 2 man, hiding behind the skirt of Condoleezza Rice?

That question led to this one. Why does this so-called "free" nation have 16 secret agencies that are controlled and governed by unelected and largely unknown individuals who do not answer to the congressional representatives of the people?

My efforts to find any budgeting for these agencies within the current and previous official budgets of the United States were disappointing. I couldn't find any specific monies upon which they each operated.

But what I did find led to more questions than answers until I finally got to the point that I had to admit I know little about how my government truly operates.

For example, how is it that American spies, like former president George H. Bush, Robert Gates, John Negroponte and others have toggled between working both above and beneath the radar of the American public and media for decades and no one has even raised an eyebrow?

With former top spy Robert Gates set to become the Secretary of Defense with hardly a clearing of the throat by congress, and longtime superliar John Negroponte soon to be sliding talking points to Condy Rice regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East, the stage is set for the world of James Bond to be in complete control of every aspect of American power.

Even as George W. Bush defies the public, intimidates congress into inaction, and vows that he will maintain a policy of sacrificing U.S. troops in Iraq as long as he is president, "furniture is being moved" — as former president Ronald Reagan called it when he shuffled people around in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra Affair.

Soon, the State Department will be just another arm of the 16 secret spy agencies operating under the direction of the White House and Pentagon. Diplomacy will merely refer to the talking that distracts from the planned mission that will be accomplished, come what may.

The military will not only answer to the CIA's former "Man," moved into a position as the new Defense Secretary, but also continue to cater to the father of the Commander-in-Chief, who was once "The Man" as well. While many may chide the president and poke fun at his humorous antics and unceasing bloopers, there is no levity in the reality that behind the son is the father — and all of his men pulling the strings. The decision to invade Iraq wasn't initially made by the son in 2003 (a lie continually fed to the public by the national media), but rather by the father in 1990. The invasion of Iraq in 1991 by over a half-million U.S. troops was the start of a war that has never ended, characterized by Saddam as the "Mother of all Wars."

Bush declared the Gulf War over in 3 months.

But Bush is a liar. And I don't have to read his lips.

I can simply review the facts.

When a war is over, folks go home. Bombs do not continue to detonate and contaminate land and water. Civilians do not continue to be killed from overhead warplanes. A nation's skies do not remain controlled by the enemy of that nation. Certainly we would consider our nation under seige if the skies over the Great Plains were the only area allowed for use by the invading force that continued to exercise authority over America long after declaring its war against us over. Why is it any different in Iraq, where U.S. and British military forces maintained a continuous domination and control over vast regions of Northern and Southern Iraq.

The spies and military of the invaders do not remain operating in the target country when the war is over. But, in Iraq, we were told that the Gulf War was over even as the U.S. military maintained what president Bill Clinton characterized as "a policy of containment." Clinton's policy of cooperation with Bush by maintaining the aggression in the Middle East is merely a continuation of the Carter Doctrine. Surely, there are still Americans left who recall the infamous State of the Union address given by Jimmy Carter in 1980, where he declared that 2/3 of the world's oil exists in the Middle East and the United States would control it "by any means necessary, including military force."

Both sides of congressional aisle stood and applauded. They will do so again when Dubya declares his dominion over the Middle East region in the upcoming 2007 State of the Union address.

The current rhetoric reverberating through congress suggesting discontent with the war in Iraq is merely a smokescreen to appear as though congress is unhappy. But the actions of congress clearly tell another tale.

In 1998, congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act. A policy condoning the continuing war in Iraq as justifiable to "free" the Iraqi people from the brutal dictator that the U.S. government loved and supported for over a decade. The Iraqi people, in turn, told our government to get out of the Middle East.

Yet, despite the American public's presumption of peace, in the year 2000 alone, U.S. warplanes flew more than 11,000 missions over Iraq's skies. That's a lot of jet fuel and bombing runs for a peacetime mission in a foreign country that protests our presence. The premise that such actions were legitimized by the United Nations flies in the face of the fact that of the 192 member nations in that organization, just 28 were involved with the U.S. and Great Britain's exploitation of the U.N. Resolutions responding to Iraq's aggression against Kuwait. Ironically, the U.S. had absolutely no problem supporting Iran invading its neighbor, Iran.

Fear was the factor foisted upon an unsuspecting American public. And Saddam Hussein went from being courted as a friend on July 25, 1990 to being declared the scourge of the world and a threat to international peace on August 2, 1990.

That same fear was again promoted to the American public in the buildup to the 2003 ground invasion — yet an anvancement of military strategy in the long-running war in Iraq. Not a new war, as the public was led to believe.

So, how does a superpower that has maintained control of Iraq for 10 years through a "policy of containment" then claim it fears that nation? How does the U.S. convince the world that Iraq is a threat?

The answer is that the U.S. government cannot (and did not) convince the world of its lies when the world was witness to the truth. But the only public that truly needed to be convinced in order to enable America's leaders to operate throughout the world with impunity, was the American people. And it is the American people who were convinced the war in Iraq was over in 1991.

Today, the American people are convinced the current war in Iraq began in 2003.

And despite knowing the facts that clearly defy the propaganda that permeates all of American society, the national media counts the number of war casualties from the day of the second ground invasion of Iraq, as though the ground invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 were conducted in separate wars.

Have we really been involved in 2 wars with Iraq?

That answer depends on whether or not your definition of war is whatever the liars in the White House and Pentagon say. But, if you, like me, understand that the presence of foreign troops on American soil and the control of American skies and the continual bombing of American cities and destruction of infrastructure, with contamination of the resources and massive loss of life all add up to a war going on in America, then you will accommodate the notion that the same events occurring elsewhere constitute the same conclusion.

The truth is the casualty rate for U.S. soldiers in Iraq isn't 3,000. It is well over 14,000, with thousands of Gulf War veterans dying within the last decade after serving in Iraq due to exposure to battlefield conditions that included the destruction of chemical weapons depots previously provided to Iraq for war against Iran. In addition to U.S. troop deaths (and collateral casualties in their families), untold numbers of Iraqis have been killed as well. Estimates range from 600,000 to over a million.

The tragedy of such tremendous loss of life is that it occurs in virtual obscurity despite the fact that Americans can see it on television, hear it discussed on radio, and read about it in newspapers, magazines and the Internet.

The truth is that the U.S. military is currently in its longest ongoing war, conflict, force of action, police action, or whatever you wish to consider it, in our history. A war by any other name will still leave death and destruction in its wake. By all standards this conflict is a war in which our military in Iraq has been engaged for 16 years.

That's right. The U.S. has been at war in Iraq for 16 years. Not two wars, just one. The Mother of all Wars, it appears.

And before we blame the Bushes, we should consider that congress and the American people have continued to support such aggression throughout three presidential administrations, even after Bush (41) declared an end to the war in Iraq in April 1991.

Unfortunately, Bush's declaration that the war was over didn't seem to make its way down the chain of command to the U.S. military. After all, our planes continued to fly sorties over Iraq, bomb various targets and maintain control of 2/3 of the skies over Iraq from the day of invasion in 1991 to the present time.

While a drawdown of ground troops and re-positioning of military operations both in and around Iraq seemed to satisfy the standards of media personnel who regurgitated the lie that the war was over, to Iraqis living in a war-torn country that has continued to be bombed 14 of the 16 years of U.S. control, death permeated the air.

Since 1991, there never was any doubt that America's ground troops would be back. Her Air Force and Navy never left. Her secret forces continued to operate in the country. The American people have been lied to both before and after the invasions of Iraq. Even in preparation for the initiation of the war in 1991, the lies of the State Department paved the way for a campaign of propaganda.

The State Department sent Ambassador April Glaspie to Iraq on July 25, 1990 to assuage Saddam's concerns over his pending invasion of Kuwait, which took place a mere 8 days later.

The U.S. knew all along it would use that move as the catalyst to launch a massive propaganda campaign against Saddam that would end in his death while he watched America rule over his country. Iraqis were glad to see him go, but they have also indicated through polls, protests, parliamentary procedures and violence that they have no desire for the cohorts of Hussein (U.S. government) to remain in Iraq.

The new propaganda is that we cannot leave a war-torn and violent Iraq. Yet, America's presence in Iraq and the Middle East region has been a catalyst for violence since 1953 when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in order to steal its oil. Our presence in the region furthered violence through a collaboration with Saddam hussein and support for an invasion of Iran and the sustaining of an eight-year war that saw the deaths of over one million Muslims.

American presence and influence in the Middle East has never resulted in peace. In fact, peace isn't even the goal. Portection of "U.S. vital interests" (code name for oil) is the goal. And to that end the U.S. presence in Iraq will continue until athere is a guarantee of safetly over America's most precious commodity.

There is little doubt in congress that the U.S. will remain in Iraq, determined to install a regime that can safeguard the oil that continues to flow from Iraq's shores to the United States uninterrupted.

Today, we have yet another Bush in the Oval Office. And his words are the same as his father's. His actions are the same as his father's. His intent is the same as his father's. He speaks of peace that comes solely through complete domination over another and the unconditional submission of the targeted nation.

But, if we are to believe that only those living in Iraq have need to fear the executive power wielded by Bush and the secret powers-that-be in our government, then we haven't paid close enough attention to our own elected representatives.

When the president took action to implement strategies of torture, secret prisons, spying upon anyone at anytime, the sole decision to determine who is a terrorist and enemy of this nation, and a host of other immoral, illegal, illicit and unethical actions, congress either fell silent or rendered a half-hearted disapproval. In some cases it stood and applauded, as it likely will during the next State of the Union address. But the key component in the debate between congressional leaders and the president is that the president takes action while congress laments those actions while warning and wavering.

Bush is bold and straightforward while his opponents hedge their bets.

Bush is unabashedly and unashamedly aggressive and offensive.

Congress is cowardly and cautious.

Bush does what he says he will do.

Congress says a lot and does nothing.

Bush is now setting the stage to ensure the secret powers at his command will have top people in charge of the Defense Department and the State Department. With the Executive Branch controlling both the powers of military action and propaganda, as well as the secret budgets of the 16 agencies over which congress has no control, I am left with one haunting question.

What will congress do if the transfer of power in the White House doesn't occur in January 2009?

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Mike Green is the author of "The WHOLE truth about the U.S. War on Terror: answers to every question you never knew to ask"

theTruthAboutTerror.com