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US Wars The U.S. has been in many wars since it became a country and even before when we were just colonies. I think we were in far more wars than most of us realize. I may have missed some but here are most of them: In 1680 we fought a war that was known as King William's War, it lasted about 8 years. In 1702 we fought Queen Anne's War. This war lasted about 10 years. Some of the indians joined the French against us. In 1739 we were again at war. This was called The War of Jenkin's Ear. It started in 1739 and lasted about 5 years. It was between the colonies and Spain. We just couldn't relax and a year later we fought another war known as King George's War. This war lasted about 5 years. We had a year of peace after this war but then we had to fight the most famous pre revolutionary war. In 1755 we fought the French and Indian Wars. This war lasted about 8 years. But even in between these wars were we at peace during those short periods where war didn't exist? No because we were fighting with other European countries and the indians. This was called the Colonial Indian Wars. Now we have the American Revolution and that lasts about 8 years from 1775 to 1783. At the same time we have another war called the Indian Wars. Its starts in 1775 but continues until 1890. Its the war with the various indian tribes. We began fighting this war before we were even a country. Not long after the Revolutionary War, 1798 to be exact, we fought an undeclared naval war with our former friend, France. This lasted for about 3 years and is almost forgotten by history. We had various rebellions through out this period but I am not counting them as wars. In 1800 we fought the Tripelitanian War and this one lasted almost 6 years. The war of 1812 was fought against the British and lasted about 3 years. Then there was the Algerian War in 1815, that lasted about a year. In 1819 we decided to attack Florida and seized it from Spain. 1846 brought us the Mexican War. This lasted from 1846 to 1847. We had a nice little war in Kansas in 1855 that lasted about 6 years. Both sides of the slavery issue were fighting it out. In 1861 the Civil War Began and lasted until 1865. In 1893 we got mixed up in the Hawaiian War. 1898 saw us attacking Spain because we thought that they sunk the Maine, a US battleship. In 1899 we fought the Philippine - American War. This lasted about 14 years if you count the More Rebellion. In 1900 we got involved in the Boxer Rebellion in China with many other European Governments. We sent troops to Panama in 1903 to prevent Colombia from overthrowing the government. From 1909 to 1933 we intervened in various tropical countries, this is known as the Banana Wars. 1914 saw us invade and occupy Vera Cruz, Mexico. In 1916 we sent a force into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. This went on for two years. The Big War, World War I, began for us in 1917 and ended in 1918. A year later we intervened in the Russia Civil War with other European countries. This lasted about 3 years. We finally had a period of peace that lasted until the next World War. World War II started for us in 1941 and ended in 1945. It wasn't long before we were at war again, the Korean War started in 1950 and lasted about 4 years. A few years later in 1958 we sent troops to Lebanon. In 1964 we became involved with Vietnam. This was a long war that lasted from 1964 to 1973. There were other wars in the area that we got involved with, some covertly. They were the Laotian Civil War which started somewhere around 1960 and lasted for 15 years and the Cambodian Civil War that began around 1970 and lasted until 1975. In 1965 we intervened in the Dominican Republic. In 1980 we decided to help Iraq by giving them intelligence info about Iran. By 1988 the war finally ended. We did the same thing in Lebanon in 1982 but this lasted about 3 years. In 1983 we invaded Grenada. In 1987 we sent our navy to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf from the Iranians.1989 saw us invade Panama. In 1991 we fought the Second Persian Gulf War. After this war in which we had soundly defeated Iraq we maintained a no fly zone until 2003. The Somalia involvement took place in 1992 and lasted for about 2 years. In 1994 we occupied Haiti and still have troops there. 1995 saw us involved in the Bosnian War. In 1999 we were involved with the war in Kosovo. In 2001 we invaded Afghanistan and are still fighting there. In 2003 we invaded Iraq and are also still fighting there. And finally in 2004 we again intervened in Haiti. So what do all these wars cost? Besides the obvious in human lives, the financial cost is tremendous. Just looking at the major wars and what they cost in Billions of dollars, gives us this list: The Revolution 1.2 War of 1812 0.7 Mexican War 1.1 Civil War Combined 44.4 Spanish American War 6.3 World War I 196.5 World War II 2,091.3 Korea 263.9 Vietnam 346.7 Gulf War 61.1 Afghanistan And Iran 300.0 (so far) You can see by the list above that I have left out many smaller conflicts. Its hard to believe that one country could have fought so many wars. If I had counted all the revolts and small skirmishes there would have been so many more. It seems that we are always at war. Maybe it is time to rethink our policies.

Fake Terrorism  The Road To Dictatorship   By Michael Rivero from the Free Republic   It's the oldest trick in the book, dating back to Roman times; creating the enemies you need.   In 70 BC, an ambitious minor politician and extremely wealthy man, Marcus Licineus Crassus, wanted to rule Rome. Just to give you an idea of what sort of man Crassus really was, he is credited with invention of the fire brigade. But in Crassus' version, his fire-fighting slaves would race to the scene of a burning building whereupon Crassus would offer to buy it on the spot for a tiny fraction of it's worth. If the owner sold, Crassus' slaves would put out the fire. If the owner refused to sell, Crassus allowed the building to burn to the ground. By means of this device, Crassus eventually came to be the largest single private landholder in Rome, and used some of his wealth to help back Julius Caesar against Cicero.   In 70 BC Rome was still a Republic, which placed very strict limits on what Rulers could do, and more importantly NOT do. But Crassus had no intentions of enduring such limits to his personal power, and contrived a plan.   Crassus seized upon the slave revolt led by Sparticus in order to strike terror into the hearts of Rome, whose garrison Sparticus had already defeated in battle. But Sparticus had no intention of marching on Rome itself, a move he knew to be suicidal. Sparticus and his band wanted nothing to do with the Roman empire and had planned from the start merely to loot enough money from their former owners in the Italian countryside to hire a mercenary fleet in which to sail to freedom.   Sailing away was the last thing Crassus wanted Sparticus to do. He needed a convenient enemy with which to terrorize Rome itself for his personal political gain. So Crassus bribed the mercenary fleet to sail without Sparticus, then positioned two Roman legions in such a way that Sparticus had no choice but to march on Rome.   Terrified of the impending arrival of the much-feared army of gladiators, Rome declared Crassus Praetor. Crassus then crushed Sparticus' army and even though Pompeii took the credit, Crassus was elected Consul of Rome the following year.   With this manoeuvre, the Romans surrendered their Republican form of government. Soon would follow the first Triumvirate, consisting of Crassus, Pompeii, and Julius Caesar, followed by the reign of the god-like Emperors of Rome.   The Romans were hoaxed into surrendering their Republic, and accepting the rule of Emperors.   Julius Caesar's political opponent, Cicero, for all his literary accomplishments, played the same games in his campaign against Julius Caesar, claiming that Rome was falling victim to an internal "vast right wing" conspiracy in which any expressed desire for legislative limits no government was treated as suspicious behaviour. Cicero, in order to demonstrate to the Romans just how unsafe Rome has become hired thugs to cause as much disturbance as possible, and campaigned on a promise to end the internal strife if elected and granted extraordinary powers.   What Cicero only dreamed of, Adolf Hitler succeeded in doing. Elected Chancellor of Germany, Hitler, like Crassus, had no intention of living with the strict limits to his power imposed by German law. Unlike Cicero, Hitler's thugs were easy to recognize; they all wore the same brown shirts. But their actions were no different than those of their Roman predecessors. They staged beatings, set fires, caused as much trouble as they could, while Hitler made speeches promising that he could end the crime wave of subversives and terrorism if he was granted extraordinary powers.   The Germans were hoaxed into surrendering their Republic, and accepting the rule of Der Führer.   The state-sponsored schools will never tell you this, but governments routinely rely on hoaxes to sell their agendas to an otherwise reluctant public. The Romans accepted the Emperors and the Germans accepted Hitler not because they wanted to, but because the carefully crafted illusions of threat appeared to leave no other choice.   Our government too uses hoaxes to create the illusion that We The People have no choice but the direction the government wishes us to go in.   In 1898, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal were arguing for American intervention in Cuba. Hearst is reported to have dispatched a photographer to Cuba to photograph the coming war with Spain. When the photographer asked just what war that might be, Hearst is reported to have replied, "You take the photographs, and I will provide the war". Hearst was true to his word, as his newspaper published stories of great atrocities being committed against the Cuban people, most of which turned out to be complete fabrications.   On the night of February 15, 1898, the USS Maine, lying in Havana harbour in a show of US resolve to protect her interests, exploded violently. Captain Sigsbee, the commander of the Maine, urged that no assumptions of enemy attack be made until there was a full investigation of the cause of the explosion. For this, Captain Sigsbee was excoriated in the press for "refusing to see the obvious". The Atlantic Monthly declared flat out that to suppose the explosion to be anything other than a deliberate act by Spain was "completely at defiance of the laws of probability".   Under the slogan "Remember the Maine", Americans went to war with Spain, wresting from that nation ownership of what is now much of the American southwest.   In 1975, an investigation led by Admiral Hyman Rickover examined the data recovered from a 1911 examination of the wreck and concluded that there had been no evidence of an external explosion. The most likely cause of the sinking was a coal dust explosion in a coal bunker imprudently located next to the ship's magazines. Captain Sigsbee's caution had been well founded.   President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed a war. He needed the fever of a major war to mask the symptoms of a still deathly ill economy struggling back from the Great Depression. Roosevelt wanted a war with Germany to stop Hitler, but despite several provocations in the Atlantic, the American people, still struggling with that troublesome economy, were opposed to any wars.   Roosevelt needed an enemy, and if America would not willingly attack that enemy, then one would have to be manoeuvred into attacking America, much as Marcus Licinius Crassus has maneuvered Sparticus into attacking Rome.   The way open to war was created when Japan signed the tripartite agreement with Italy and Germany, with all parties pledging mutual defence to each other. Whereas Hitler would never declare war on the United States no matter the provocation, the means to force Japan to do so were readily at hand.   The first step was to place oil and steel embargoes on Japan, using Japan's wars on the Asian mainland as a reason. This forced Japan to consider seizing the oil and mineral rich regions in Indonesia. With the European powers militarily exhausted by the war in Europe, the United States was the only power in the Pacific able to stop Japan from invading the Dutch East Indies, and by moving the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, Roosevelt made a pre-emptive strike on that fleet the mandatory first step in any Japanese plan to extend it's empire into the "southern resource area".   Roosevelt boxed in Japan just as completely as Crassus had boxed in Sparticus. Japan needed oil. They had to invade Indonesia to get it, and to do that they had to remove the threat of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour. There never really was any other course open to them.   To enrage the American people as much as possible, Roosevelt needed the first overt attack by Japan to be as bloody as possible, appearing as a sneak attack much as the Japanese had done to the Russians. From that moment up until the attack on Pearl Harbour itself, Roosevelt and his associates made sure that the commanders in Hawaii, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, were kept in the dark as much as possible about the location of the Japanese fleet and it's intentions, then later scapegoated for the attack. (Congress recently exonerated both Short and Kimmel, posthumously restoring them to their former ranks).   But as the Army board had concluded at the time, and subsequent de-classified documents confirmed, Washington DC knew the attack was coming, knew exactly where the fleet was, and knew where it was headed.   On November 29th, Secretary of State Hull showed United Press reporter Joe Leib a message with the time and place of the attack, and the New York Times in it's special 12/8/41 Pearl Harbour edition, on page 13, reported that the time and place of the attack had been known in advance!   The much repeated claim that the Japanese fleet maintained radio silence on it's way to Hawaii was a lie. Among other intercepts still held in the Archives of the NSA is the UNCODED message sent by the Japanese tanker Shirya stating, "proceeding to a position 30.00 N, 154.20 E. Expect to arrive at that point on 3 December." (near HI)   President Lyndon Johnson wanted a war in Vietnam. He wanted it to help his friends who owned defence companies to do a little business. He needed it to get the Pentagon and CIA to quit trying to invade Cuba. And most of all, he needed a provocation to convince the American people that there was really "no other choice".   On August 5, 1964, newspapers across America reported "renewed attacks" against American destroyers operating in Vietnamese waters, specifically the Gulf of Tonkin. The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" on the USS Maddox while it was on "routine patrol".   The truth is that USS Maddox was involved in aggressive intelligence gathering in coordination with actual attacks by South Vietnam and the Laotian Air Force against targets in North Vietnam. The truth is also that there was no attack by torpedo boats against the USS Maddox. Captain John J. Herrick, the task force commander in the Gulf, cabled Washington DC that the report was the result of an "over-eager" sonar man who had picked up the sounds of his own ship's screws and panicked. But even with this knowledge that the report was false, Lyndon Johnson went on national TV that night to announce the commencement of air strikes against North Vietnam, "retaliation" for an attack that had never occurred.   President George Bush wanted a war in Iraq. Like Crassus, George Bush is motivated by money. Specifically oil money. But with the OPEC alliance failing to keep limits on oil production in the Mideast, the market was being glutted with oil pumped from underneath Iraq, which sat over roughly 1/3 of the oil reserves of the entire region.   George wanted a war to stop that flow of oil, to keep prices (and profits) from falling any further than they already had. But like Roosevelt, he needed the "other side" to make the first move.   Iraq had long been trying to acquire greater access to the Persian Gulf, and felt limited confined a narrow strip of land along Kuwait's northern border, which placed Iraqi interests in close proximity with hostile Iran. George Bush, who had been covertly arming Iraq during its war with Iran, sent word via Jean Kirkpatrick that the United States would not intervene if Saddam Hussein grabbed a larger part of Kuwait. Saddam fell for the bait and invaded. Of course, Americans were not about to send their sons and daughters to risk their lives for petroleum products. So George Bush arranged a hoax, using public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which has grown rich on taxpayer money by being most industrious and creative liars! Hill & Knowlton concocted a monumental fraud in which the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States, went on TV pretending to be a nurse, and related a horror story in which Iraqi troops looted the incubators from a Kuwaiti hospital, leaving the premature babies on the cold floor to die. The media, part of the swindle from the start, never bothered asking why the "nurse" didn't just pick the babies up and wrap them in blankets or something.   Enraged by the incubator story, Americans supported operation Desert Storm, which never removed Saddam Hussein from power but which did take Kuwait's oil off of the market for almost 2 years and limited Iraq's oil exports to this very day. That our sons and daughters came home with serious and lingering medical illnesses was apparently not too great a price to pay for increased oil profits.   Following the victory in Iraq, yet another war appeared to be in the offering in the mineral rich regions of Bosnia. Yet again, a hoax was used to create support for military action. A photo of Fikret Alic, a Muslim, staring through a barbed wire fence, was used to "prove" that the Bosnians were running modern day "Concentration Camps". As the headline of "Belsen 92" indicates, all possible associations with the Nazi horrors were made to sell the necessity of sending yet more American troops into someone else's nation.   But when German Journalists went to Trnopolje, the site of the supposed Bosnian Concentration Camp. to film a documentary, they discovered that the photo was a fake! The camp at Trnopolje was not a concentration camp but a refugee centre. Nor was it surrounded by barbed wire. Careful examination of the original photo revealed that the photographer had shot the photo through a broken section of fence surrounding a tool shed. It was the photographer who was on the inside, shooting out at the refugees.   Once again, Americans had been hoaxed into support of actions they might otherwise not have agreed with.   While several American Presidents have willingly started wars for personal purposes, perhaps no President has ever carried it to the extreme that Bill Clinton has.   Coincident with the expected public statement of Monica Lewinsky following her testimony, Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on Sudan and Afghanistan, claiming to have had irrefutable proof that bogeyman extraordinaire (and former Afghani ally) Osama Bin Laden was creating terrorist chemical weapons there.   Examination of the photos of the debris revealed none of the expected structures one would find in a laboratory that handled lethal weapons-grade materials. Assurances from the CIA that they had a positive soil test for biological weapons fell on their face when it was revealed that there had been no open soil anywhere near the pre-bombed facility. Sudan requested that international observers come test the remains of the factory for any signs of the nerve gas Clinton had insisted was there. None was found. The Sudanese plant was a harmless aspirin factory, and the owner has sued for damages.   Later examination of the site hit in Afghanistan revealed it to be a mosque. Meanwhile, back in Kosovo, stories about genocide and atrocities were flooding the media (in time to distract from the Sudanese embarrassments), just as lurid and sensational and as it turns out often just as fictional as most of William Randolph Hearst's stories of atrocities against the Cubans.   Again, the government and the media were hoaxing Americans. A photo was shown on all the American networks, claiming to be one of Slobodan Milosovic's Migs, shot down while attacking civilians. Closer examination shows it to be stencilled in English!   Like Germany under Chancellor Hitler, there have been events in our nation which strike fear into the hearts of the citizens, such as the New York World Trade Tower bombing, the OK City Federal Building, and the Olympic Park bomb (nicely timed to divert the media from witnesses to the TWA 800 shoot down). The media has been very quick to blame such events on "radicals", "subversives", "vast right wing conspiracies", and other "enemies in our midst", no different than the lies used by Cicero and Hitler.   But on closer examination, such "domestic terrorist" events do not appear to be what they are made out to be. The FBI had an informant inside the World Trade Tower bombers, Emad Salam, who offered to sabotage the bomb. The FBI told him "no". The so-called "hot bed" of white separatism at Elohim City, occasional home to Tim McVeigh in the weeks prior to the OK City bombing, was founded and is being run by an FBI informant!   And nobody has ever really explained what this second Ryder truck was doing in a secret camp half way from Elohim City to Oklahoma City two weeks before the bombing.   So, here we are today. Like the Romans of Crassus' and Cicero's time, or the Germans under a newly elected Hitler, we are being warned that a dangerous enemy threatens us, implacable, invisible, omnipresent, and invulnerable as long as our government is hamstrung by that silly old Bill of Rights. Already there have appeared articles debating whether or not "extraordinary measures" (i.e. torture) are not fully justified under certain circumstances such as those we are purported to face.   As was the case in Rome and Germany, the government continues to plead with the public for an expansion of its power and authority, to "deal with the crisis".   However, as Casio watch timers are paraded before the cameras, to the stentorian tones of the talking heads' constant dire warnings, it is legitimate to question just how real the crises is, and how much is the result of political machinations by our own leaders.   Are the terrorists really a threat, or just hired actors with bombs and Casio watches, paid for by Cicero and given brown shirts to wear by Hitler?   Is terrorism inside the United States really from outside, or is it a stage managed production, designed to cause Americans to believe they have no choice but to surrender the Republic and accept the totalitarian rule of a new emperor, or a new Führer?   Once lost, the Romans never got their Republic back. Once lost, the Germans never got their Republic back. In both cases, the nation had to totally collapse before freedom was restored to the people.   Remember that when Crassus tells you that Sparticus approaches. Remember that when thugs in the streets act in a manner clearly designed to provoke the public fear. Remember that when the Reichstag burns down.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please feel free to copy this article everywhere.       The Unveiling of the National Security State   All things change, including our time-honored system of government. We have entered into a new era, marked by the existence of an omnipresent state, controlled by the very few, bound by no law but its own. Welcome to the New World Order.   "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -Benjamin Franklin A new American order is in place. Better get used to it. Or else.   Five centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli explained how to undertake a revolution from above without most people even noticing. In his Discourses on Livy, he wrote that one "must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones."   That is, keep the old government structures, even while you make profound changes to the actual system, because the appearances are all that most people will notice.   So today, instead of seeing the corpse of a republic in which we live, we see merely the dead man’s clothing. Those clothes look the same as ever, albeit increasingly worn. We have had a quiet revolution that has not eliminated our Congressional representatives – it’s simply made them largely irrelevant.   It’s been a long journey to our current state of affairs. Not surprisingly, wars have been a major catalyst. Most wars fought by the United States have added power to the executive branch, while whittling power away from the legislature. This includes wars fought for high-minded purposes such as the Civil War and World War Two, mindless bloodbaths like World War One, and the dozens of undeclared wars over the past half-century.   I would select World War Two – and its immediate aftermath – as the real turning point when the American Dream went awry. This is ironic, since it was at that moment when America first sat atop the world at the pinnacle of power.   And therein lies the problem. For this was when the American republic began its transformation into a national security state. Or, to put it another way, into an Empire.   Harry Truman has received a free ride from historians who glorify the all-powerful American State, but it he deserves a large share of the blame for the existence of our current behemoth .   But enough of the past. This is, after all, post-9/11 America, in which we are collectively driving our vehicle down a dangerous mountain path, only to discover suddenly that we’re not doing the driving.   We no longer govern ourselves. There is no "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," in any meaningful sense – in any sense beyond what it might have meant to a citizen of the U.S.S.R. in the bad old days of the Soviet Union.   As Machiavelli saw in his own time (and as he essentially foretold regarding our own), the dramatic changes to our political institutions have occurred without the people really noticing.   Consider the extraordinary – "nonstop" would be a better word – number of U.S. military actions around the world these days. But when did Congress last issue a declaration of war?   Consider the all-but open purchase of Presidents, members of Congress, and anyone else of significance by those with financial means. Yet another set of nails in the coffin of the American Republic.   Consider the internationalization of real power in this world, and the lack of institutional means to examine or regulate such power. Our global situation is akin to medieval feudalism, or more simply gangsterism. The military power of the United States is the primary tool for enforcement and self-enrichment by those with means. Best of all, you don’t have to be an American citizen to influence policies of the U.S. military. Just ask any influential Saudi Arabian, Israeli, or Chinese leader. Or various leaders from the world of organized crime.   Consider the ramming through of the Patriot Act a bare month after 9/11/01, when it was obvious that not a single member of Congress read it thoroughly. With such a massively expanded federal ability to spy into your personal life, you might as well bid farewell to the Fourth Amendment – at least if you’re doing anything interesting in the opinion of certain and mysterious bureaucrats.   Consider the conviction held by America’s Founding Fathers that a functioning democracy requires an informed citizenry. Otherwise, they argued, the experiment in "government by the people" would be doomed to failure, and would inevitably transform into oligarchy. Compare that to our situation today, when ordinary people cannot gain important information from governing bodies, when the Freedom of Information Act is increasingly unfriendly, and when people are pacified 24/7 by a non-stop all-encompassing entertainment-driven culture that dominates one’s waking moments. The Romans called that bread and circuses. It describes our situation well enough today.   In the same vein, consider also the promulgation of lies by America’s political leadership that served as the pretext for the current war (e.g. the false link between Iraq and Al Quaida, the falseness of claims regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction), and the willingness of America’s so-called Watchdog Media to jump uncritically on board, beating the war drum. And when recognition is made that the information was indeed false, it comes too late to prevent the pointless deaths of thousands of soldiers and civilians.   Consider the horrified reaction to the savagery of Nazi and Japanese atrocities during the Second World War. To the infamous German defense -- "we were only following orders" -- the world responded (rightly) that there are certain human values that must never be transgressed, and that torture is never an acceptable human value. Fast forward to the atrocities committed by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. And the defense offered by (what some like to refer to as) America’s finest: that they did no wrong, since they were only following orders. Just ask American soldier, Lyndie England. That’s what she told the world.   Consider the ominous, burgeoning discussion on developing protocols in the event that the upcoming Presidential election needs to be "delayed" due to a possible terrorist attack. Delay the election? Even during America’s Civil War, the election of 1864 occurred right on schedule. We’ve come a long way, indeed.   What has happened by degrees over the past fifty years is that our traditional political structure and culture have eroded and degraded into something that prior generations of Americans would have found shocking and unrecognizable. Indeed, they would have found our current state of affairs to be positively un-American.   Machiavelli certainly had it right, but an addendum is necessary. After the true and deep structures of power have been sufficiently transformed, the outward appearance must eventually catch up. As the old song says, something’s gotta give, and the outward trappings will need to be revised to reflect the new order.   Thus we see, in the wake of 9/11, that the veil of the New State is being lifted. It is a State that has become so expansive and powerful, it is no longer possible to hide it with the fig leaf of the old, honorable ideology of republican virtue. Consider our era the "coming out party" of the National Security State.   The millions of bumper stickers that proudly proclaim "God Bless America" would be better expressed with a slight change:   "May God have mercy on the United States of America." Warfare Theology and The Coming 4th Reich!   Comparing America to the 3rd Reich seems to be becoming a pastime in America today. Why is that? What is it about America's New World Order, and it’s War on Terror, that reminds us of Germany in the 1930s? George W. Bush, with support from the religious right, and the Christian coalition, are waging a war. How did all this begin? What is the fuel for this new surge of military might? Where did this new "Warfare Theology" come from?

The medieval doctrine of "Just War" (justum bellum, or, more precisely jus ad bellum) was propounded by Saint Augustine of Hippo (fifth century AD), Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in his "Summa Theologicae", Francisco de Vitoria (1548-1617), Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) in his influential tome "Jure Belli ac Pacis" ("On Rights of War and Peace", 1625), Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1704), Christian Wolff (1679-1754), and Emerich de Vattel (1714-1767). Modern thinkers include Michael Walzer in "Just and Unjust Wars" (1977), Barrie Paskins and Michael Dockrill in "The Ethics of War" (1979), Richard Norman in "Ethics, Killing, and War" (1995), Thomas Nagel in "War and Massacre", and Elizabeth Anscombe in "War and Murder". According to the Catholic Church's rendition of this theory, set forth by Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in his Letter to President Bush on Iraq, dated September 13, 2002, going to war is justified if these conditions are met: "The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations [is] lasting, grave, and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." A just war is, therefore, a last resort, all other peaceful conflict resolution options having been exhausted. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy sums up the doctrine thus: The principles of the justice of war are commonly held to be: 1.      Having just cause (especially and, according to the United Nations Charter, exclusively, self-defense); 2.      Being (formally) declared by a proper authority; 3.      Possessing a right intention; 4.      Having a reasonable chance of success; 5.      The end being proportional to the means used. Yet, the evolution of warfare - the invention of nuclear weapons, the propagation of total war, the ubiquity of guerrilla and national liberation movements, the emergence of global, border-hopping terrorist organizations, of totalitarian regimes, and rogue or failed states - requires these principles to be modified by adding these tenets: 6.      That the declaring authority is a lawfully and democratically elected government. 7.      That the declaration of war reflects the popular will. (Extension of 3) The right intention is to act in just cause. (Extension of 4) ... or a reasonable chance of avoiding an annihilating defeat. (Extension of 5) That the outcomes of war are preferable to the outcomes of the preservation of peace. Still, the doctrine of just war, conceived in Europe in eras past, is fraying at the edges. Rights and corresponding duties are ill-defined or mismatched. What is legal is not always moral and what is legitimate is not invariably legal. Political realism and quasi-religious idealism sit uncomfortably within the same conceptual framework. Norms are vague and debatable while customary law is only partially subsumed in the tradition (i.e., in treaties, conventions and other instruments, as well in the actual conduct of states). The most contentious issue is, of course, what constitutes "just cause". Self-defense, in its narrowest sense (reaction to direct and overwhelming armed aggression), is a justified casus belli. But what about the use of force to (deontologically, consequentially, or ethically): 1.      Prevent or ameliorate a slow-motion or permanent humanitarian crisis; 2.      Preempt a clear and present danger of aggression ("anticipatory or preemptive self-defense" against what Grotius called "immediate danger"); 3.      Secure a safe environment for urgent and indispensable humanitarian relief operations; 4.      Restore democracy in the attacked state ("regime change"); 5.      Restore public order in the attacked state; 6.      Prevent human rights violations or crimes against humanity or violations of international law by the attacked state; 7.      Keep the peace ("peacekeeping operations") and enforce compliance with international or bilateral treaties between the aggressor and the attacked state or the attacked state and a third party; 8.      Suppress armed infiltration, indirect aggression, or civil strife aided and abetted by the attacked state; 9.      Honor one's obligations to frameworks and treaties of collective self-defense; 10. Protect one's citizens or the citizens of a third party inside the attacked state; 11. Protect one's property or assets owned by a third party inside the attacked state; 12. Respond to an invitation by the authorities of the attacked state - and with their expressed consent - to militarily intervene within the territory of the attacked state; 13. React to offenses against the nation's honor or its economy. Unless these issues are resolved and codified, the entire edifice of international law - and, more specifically, the law of war - is in danger of crumbling. The contemporary multilateral regime proved inadequate and unable to effectively tackle genocide (Rwanda, Bosnia), terror (in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East), weapons of mass destruction (Iraq, India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea), and tyranny (in dozens of members of the United Nations). This feebleness inevitably led to the resurgence of "might is right" unilateralism, as practiced, for instance, by the United States in places as diverse as Grenada and Iraq. This pernicious and ominous phenomenon is coupled with contempt towards and suspicion of international organizations, treaties, institutions, undertakings, and the prevailing consensual order. In a unipolar world, reliant on a single superpower for its security, the abrogation of the rules of the game could lead to chaotic and lethal anarchy with a multitude of "rebellions" against the emergent American Empire. International law - the formalism of "natural law" - is only one of many competing universalist and missionary value systems. Militant Islam is another. The West must adopt the former to counter the latter.

Truth is ignored, hidden, embellished, or whitewashed i.e. given the Hollywood treatment

What many people see of America is not really America; it is Hollywood. Not just foreigners, even Americans see America through the eyes of Hollywood. Take World War II. Many Americans think that it was they who saved the world! (It was actually Russia, led by like-it-or-not Stalin, which was the first to inflict a defeat on the Nazis, free a host of countries from occupation, enter Berlin and take charge of Hitler's bunker.)

Not many know that not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, America had never entered the War on the side of Britain and France. Or, more correctly, they have absolutely no idea of the significance of this decision. Like the grandfather of George Bush, America was busy trading with Nazi Germany. Many, like Bush family patron William Farris (of Standard Oil, now Exxon), were making their fortunes off Nazi slave labour. The U.S. had also closed its gates to European Jews wanting to flee persecution; (forcing them to go to Palestine where they established Israel and have since remained in conflict with the original owners of the land and with their Arab neighbours.) Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time assuring his nation that he would NEVER send "their children in harm's way" - certainly a poor foil alongside real heroes like Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle or even Josef Stalin. It was precisely this geographic and political isolation from the conflict, which drew people in the war zone like a magnet to the American continent.

So, after sheep-faced Americans joined the war, films like Casablanca were released, which had Americans showing hitherto unseen courage and sparing no effort to save hapless Europeans from evil Nazis. Sure, these films helped sell a lot of "war bonds" to aid the war effort but "war films" continued to be made even after the real war was over - all of them showing Americans as the selfless saviours of the world; all of them conveniently ignoring the enormous sacrifices made by the Russians and the heavy losses made to bear on civilians in the Axis nations. During the War, American soldiers like good soldiers everywhere went about raping and pillaging when they were not busy fighting. In almost all of the war films, Americans GIs were, for mysterious reasons, models of good behaviour. It is this image that generations of Americans have believed in, rather than in what history books would have had to offer.

Rambo II, starring Sylvester Stallone, has Islamic fighters in Afghanistan portrayed as brave freedom fighters, quite in line with government policy at that time. By the time True Lies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was made, the "freedom fighters" had become "terrorists" both on screen and in the real world! Movies that romanticize military life (aiding recruitment, usually from poorer sections of the American society) such as Top Gun or Black Hawk Down get active cooperation (and under-publicized editorial input) from the U.S. military while others that question military postures have to rope in a foreign government for using their military hardware.  .

In May 2003, an Iraqi boy who suffered burns all over his body, had his arms amputed above the elbow, and lost 20 members of his family after an American missile hit his home became subject of a media frenzy. Although the boy refused American offers of free medical treatment, Hollywoood went ahead and made a movie starring George Clooney with an expectedly different story ending. In the Balkans, American soldiers have been indicted of raping women and forcing them into prostitution but that did not stop Hollywood from making a movie, which showed the opposite - an American soldier killing another soldier to prevent a rape from happening! George Bush and 9/11 was also subject of a movie. However, it featured no pet goat. In sharp contrast, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which attempted to come to terms with truth, was received with unrepressed hostility.

With every war, the deception continues to grow. Even though the fall of the Saddam statue in the middle of Baghdad or the rapturous welcome given to Ahmed Chalabi on his return to Iraq or the daring rescue of Private Jessica Lynch are considered as classics among military psy-ops films, Hollywood remains unbeaten in their effort at perpetuating myths for the U.S. government. Sure, Hollywood has no designs on the world and they are in it with the American war machine only because it is a mutually rewarding relationship. However, truth becomes a casualty - not just in war but also in peace. This blackout is made complete by sanitised coverage of world events by the American media.