The British journalist John Pilger isn’t normally one of my favorites. I often find him sloppy, strident, and too conspiratorial for my taste. (Note the implication in the piece below that Kennedy’s assassination was somehow connected to his rejection of a Pentagon covert operations plan.) Nonetheless, this is an essay worth reading. There can be no question that, for the Reagan-era hawks now largely ascendant in this administration, September 11th was a horrific but convenient act, a “new Pearl Harbor” for mobilizing the nation to already preconceived and predetermined ends.
From Fort Sumter to the Little Big Horn, the surprise attack and mobilizing defeat as preludes to a victory sure to come were essential to American ideas of war-making. Since 1941, Pearl Harbor has been the operative image at the heart of the national security state. During the Cold War, there was even much discussion of possible “atomic Pearl Harbors,” something of a contradiction in terms. (At the height of the Cuban missile crisis, in rejecting the idea of launching an American nonnuclear strike against Cuban missile sites manned by Soviet advisors, Attorney General Robert Kennedy said of the President, “My brother is not going to be the Tojo of the 1960s.”) In this context, it’s interesting to know that the men of Bush II were already dreaming of the usefulness of our most recent “Pearl Harbor” two years before it happened. Tom
John Pilger reveals the American plan
New Statesman
16 December 2002
Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush
said what America needed was “a new Pearl Harbor”. Its published aims have
come alarmingly true, writes John Pilger
The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and
individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written more
than two years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for
America to dominate much of humanity and the world’s resources, it said,
was “some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”.
The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the “new Pearl Harbor”,
described as “the opportunity of ages”. The extremists who have since
exploited 11 September come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right
groups and “think-tanks” were established to avenge the American “defeat”
To read more Pilger click here
Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush
said what America needed was “a new Pearl Harbor”. Its published aims have
come alarmingly true, writes John Pilger
The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and
individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written more
than two years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for
America to dominate much of humanity and the world’s resources, it said,
was “some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”.
The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the “new Pearl Harbor”,
described as “the opportunity of ages”. The extremists who have since
exploited 11 September come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right
groups and “think-tanks” were established to avenge the American “defeat”
To read more Pilger click here