Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Richard Perle and PNAC

A group of about 15 people picketed this morning outside the American Enterprise Institute’s office on 17th Street across the street from the headquarters of the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. They were picketing the appearance of Richard Perle, James Woolsey and other war criminals speaking on the progress of the U.S. terrorist slaughter in Iraq.

The warmongers were appearing at an AEI function entitled “Iraq: What Lies Ahead.” In its description of the event, AEI said: “The war has begun. Timely analysis of the rapidly advancing military campaign will be essential for understanding events as they unfold, as well as making the necessary policy decisions about rebuilding Iraq, regional stability, and relations with our European allies. With the war underway, what steps have been taken to ensure a federal, democratic Iraq replaces Saddam’s tyrannical regime?”

The primary target of the protesters was the appearance of Richard “The Prince of Darkness” Perle at the event. A flyer distributed at the protest says, “Richard Perle is a prime mover for the new American imperialism. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld appointed Richard to the civilian Defense Policy board because Perle could never get a real government position. … He arrogantly calls journalists like Seymour Hersh terrorists, seeks corporate profits form his position in obvious conflict of interest, insults foreign leaders and mocks Americans who want to protect America — not wage wars for empire.”

Housed in the same downtown D.C. office building as AEI is the Project for the New American Century, a dangerous and radical group formed in the spring of 1997 to maintain “global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.”

Policy plans developed by PNAC have been described as “a secret blueprint for US global domination” that “reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure ‘regime change’ even before he took power in January 2001.”

(Read Jason Leopold’s excellent article on CounterPunch for more information about PNAC - http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold02192003.html)

Here is a link to a 2000 PNAC report entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses (http://cryptome.org/rad.htm) which calls for the creation of a “global Pax Americana.”

Perhaps one of the creepiest sections of the PNAC report was pointed out to me by a picketer of today’s AEI meeting. The passage, which appears on page 60 of the above-linked report, reads:

“Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces. And advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

Do the authors of this blueprint plan to order their minions to engage in this form of biological warfare? If so, we once again need to ask who the real terrorists are in our so-called “war on terrorism.”

-- Mark Hand

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