MPs vote for blanket smoking ban next year

· Majority of 200 rejects private clubs compromise
· Officials proclaim victory for better public health

Michael White, political editor
Wednesday February 15, 2006
The Guardian

A total ban on smoking inside offices, pubs, restaurants and "virtually every enclosed public place and workplace" throughout England will come into force in the summer of 2007 after a resounding cross-party majority of MPs yesterday rejected last minute compromises designed to exempt some pubs and private clubs.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the health secretary Patricia Hewitt went with the flow of expert, public and backbench opinion, changed their positions during the day and voted to abandon Labour's manifesto position of less than a year ago.

Article continues
In the crucial free vote, with neither side certain which would prevail, Ms Hewitt's latest compromise was rejected by 384 votes to 184. The 200-vote majority did not include the defence secretary, John Reid.

Health officials proclaimed the vote a historic victory, to be compared with the 1948 NHS Act or the clean air legislation which ended city smog in the 50s. But some MPs predict a backlash among voters who cherish their right to drink and smoke in working men's clubs and the grand private clubs of Pall Mall.

With smoke-free workplaces becoming "the norm", Ms Hewitt told MPs: "Over time we estimate an additional 600,000 people will give up smoking as a result of this law and millions more will be protected from second hand smoke."

That should cut the 85,000 smoking related deaths a year, pro-ban MPs believe. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already enacted public bans and the Welsh assembly has agreed in principle. Ministers also announced an increase in fines, from a maximum £200 to £1,000 for not displaying ban signs, and from £200 to £2,500 for not enforcing the ban.

Yesterday's votes came after a zealous Commons debate on the government's health bill, which even saw Liberal Democrat leadership candidates Sir Menzies Campbell and Simon Hughes defying their manifesto commitment to a full ban.

Both sides in the dispute - 40 years after Harold Wilson's Labour government first promised such a ban - squabbled to the very end over the right line to draw between between protecting public health and individual liberty. Labour's Steve Pound, a self-styled "ashtray monitor" since primary school, made a witty appeal for tolerance and realism - but in vain. Last night MPs first voted 453 to 125 to replace the 2005 manifesto compromise, fashioned by Ms Hewitt's predecessor, Mr Reid, and backed by the then-cabinet. It would have exempted pubs which sell cooked food from the proposed ban, a halfway house intended to allow both choice and time to build consensus.

The Reid formula was denounced as unworkable and wrong by health professionals and trade unions who warned of the dangers of passive smoking for other customers and employees, not least pub staff. Opinion polls have moved their way.

Last night Mr Reid's no vote was joined by cabinet colleagues John Prescott, Tessa Jowell, Alan Johnson, Ruth Kelly and John Hutton, plus 44 other Labour MPs, many from traditional industrial towns with clubs that will be affected or even put out of business. Most Tory MPs including the past three leaders voted no, though David Cameron was absent as his wife gave birth. Eight Lib Dems also voted no.

A majority of MPs, including Ms Hewitt's Tory shadow, Andrew Lansley - who has also changed his position since 2005 - endorsed a replacement clause to confirm ministerial powers to exempt private and residential homes, hotel rooms, prisons and hostels. It would also have allowed Ms Hewitt to exempt 18,500 private clubs, owned by their members and run on a non-profit basis, and therefore just as entitled to "make their own decisions as [people] in their own homes", she argued during the bill's second reading debate in November.

Yesterday she made the clubs' case again, but defied Conservative taunts that her "voice and vote" in debate should go the same way, admitting she had an open mind. Colleagues told her a clubs exemption would be unfair to pubs.

A second vote, designed to decide the clubs issue separately, saw MPs vote by the thumping 200 majority to reject that option. Ms Hewitt's ministerial team, which had been divided, fell into line.

The smokers' lobby group Forest condemned "a double whammy, an unnecessary and illiberal piece of legislation that ignores public opinion and denies freedom of choice to millions of people".

"It is controlled by the shopkeepers. If they can see through their window that there is a problem, they turn the device on for a few minutes until the group has dispersed," Davies said.

"Shop owners have reported fabulous results and we've been approached by some who are considering buying their own equipment," she said.

A succession of scandals in the US has revealed widespread government funding of PR agencies to produce "fake news". Actors take the place of journalists and the "news" is broadcast as if it were genuine. The same practice has been adopted in Iraq, where newspapers have been paid to insert copy. These stories have raised the usual eyebrows in the UK about the pitiful quality of US democracy. Things are better here, we imply. We have a prime minister who claimed in 2004 that "the values that drive our actions abroad are the same values of progress and justice that drive us at home". Yet in 2002 the government launched a littleknown television propaganda service that seems to mimic the US government's deceptive approach to fake news.

The British Satellite News website says it is "a free television news and features service". It looks like an ordinary news website, though its lack of copyright protection might raise some questions in alert journalists. Broadcasters can put BSN material "directly into daily news programmes". In fact, BSN is provided by World Television, a company that also makes corporate videos and fake news clips for corporations such as GlaxoSmithKline, BP and Nestlé. It also produced Towards Freedom Television on behalf of the UK government. This was a propaganda programme broadcast in Iraq by US army psychological-operations teams from a specially adapted aircraft in 2003/04.

World Television produces the fake news, but its efforts are entirely funded by the Foreign Office, which spent £340m on propaganda activities in the UK alone in 2001. A comprehensive post- 9/11 overhaul means that this figure has probably markedly increased since then.

According to World Television, by November 2003 BSN "news" was being "used regularly by 14 of the 17 Middle East countries". "Over 400 stations around the world receive BSN stories," it claims. "185 are regular users of the stories, including broadcasters in Russia, Germany, Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Australia."

The diet of "news" received by viewers of the service includes an endless pageant of government ministers and other official spokespeople. Recent headlines on Iraq refer to happy news such as "Prime minister in surprise visit to Iraq" (December 22 2005) or "Iraqi ambassador upbeat on elections" (December 14 2005). Often Chatham House provides the venue for policy discussions, as in: "The psychology of terror - experts meet" (December 23 2005).

Questioning the occupation is out of the question, but some criticism of US policy is possible. In an extraordinary apologia for the British occupation of Iraq in 1920, the "suggested intro" reads: "This year is not the first time an outside power has sought to construct a modern, democratic, liberal state in Iraq. Britain tried to do the same in the 1920s". The benevolence of the US and the UK is simply assumed: "Today's USled coalition, like the imperial occupiers of 80 years ago, are trying to free Iraq's government and security services from corruption and abuse."

But the clumsy strategy of the US is potentially "alienating a large section of the population". So the question arises of what "useful lessons could be drawn" from the British experience. In reality the 1920 occupation led immediately to a popular revolt that was ruthlessly suppressed. A puppet monarchy was imposed, which was neither "modern" nor "democratic" but was, as argued by the historian Mark Curtis, one of the least popular in Middle Eastern history.

The BSN strategy seems to be to emphasise Britain's cultural diversity. Bulletins regularly highlight ethnicminority contributions to the UK and interview leading moderate Muslims. But it is possible to hear muted criticism of Israel. One item featured "A leading Israeli academic who has questioned both the wisdom and the effectiveness of the controversial 'separation fence'."

A clue to the thinking behind this lies in a 2003 report for the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) thinktank, coauthored by its then director Mark Leonard. He advised the Foreign Office on its Public Diplomacy Review in 2002 and was later appointed to the resulting Public Diplomacy Strategy Board, which directs Foreign Office propaganda strategy. Leonard wrote in 2002: "If a message will engender distrust simply because it is coming from a foreign government then the government should hide that fact as much as possible." The FPC report suggests the British government should not be afraid of "bloodying the Americans' noses" in its propaganda messages on Israel/Palestine. They must "ensure that the differences between UK and American positions and thinking are emphasised". The point is to tackle the perception that Britain "apishly follows every American lead" so the "usefulness" of "UK support for the US" is increased.

This strategy of criticising the US, in order to support it better, conforms to Blair's wider Iraq strategy. It is clear from documents leaked over the past year (such as the Downing Street memo) that the plan was to use the UN as a device for gaining legitimacy for the invasion of Iraq. All this makes a mockery of Blair's claims to progressive values. Indeed it suggests that such claims are themselves cynical propaganda.

A late round of lobbying by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in Blair's absence ensured the government won the crucial votes in the House of Commons and overturned amendments made to the ID cards bill last month by peers in the House of Lords.

A halved majority of 31 saw MPs narrowly vote to reject a wrecking amendment that would have made it completely voluntary for citizens to register for an ID card when applying for a passport.

MPs also voted, by a majority of 51, in favour of making it compulsory for citizens to register their personal and biometric details on the National Identity Register when applying for or renewing "designated" documents such as a passport despite warnings from Conservative shadow home secretary David Davies that the UK is "sleepwalking towards a surveillance state".

MPs accepted without a vote a government amendment that requires a separate Act of Parliament to make ID cards officially compulsory. Home Secretary Charles Clarke has indicated the government would move to do this by 2011.

A rebellion over an amendment that would have forced the government to make the full cost calculations of the ID card scheme public before awarding any contracts to IT suppliers was also staved off after Clarke agreed to report to parliament every six months on the costs. That was carried by a majority of 53 votes.

The ID cards bill now returns to the House of Lords where peers will vote on whether to approve the legislation or return it to the House of Commons with more amendments for MPs to vote on.

U.S. citizens make up "only a very, very small fraction" of that number, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his agency's policies. "The vast majority are non-U.S. persons and do not live in the U.S.," he added. An NCTC official refused to say how many on the list -- put together from reports supplied by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies -- are U.S. citizens.

The NSA is a key provider of information for the NCTC database, although officials refused to say how many names on the list are linked to the agency's controversial domestic eavesdropping effort. Under the program, the NSA has conducted wiretaps on an unknown number of U.S. citizens without warrants.

The government has been trying to streamline what counterterrorism officials say are more than 26 terrorism-related databases compiled by agencies throughout the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Names from the NCTC list are provided to the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), which in turn provides names for watch lists maintained by the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies.

Civil liberties advocates and privacy experts said they were troubled by the size of the NCTC database, and they said it further heightens their concerns that such government terrorism lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people. Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the numbers "shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising."

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits," Sparapani said. "If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list. But I highly doubt that is the case."

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA's domestic intelligence intercept program, the NCTC official said, "Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he could not discuss specifics but said: "Information is collected, information is retained and information disseminated in a way to protect the privacy interests of all Americans."

The NCTC name repository began under its predecessor agency in 2003 with 75,000 names, and it continues to grow. The center was created as part of a broad reorganization of U.S. intelligence agencies after the failure to disrupt the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is the main agency for analyzing and integrating terrorism intelligence and is under direction of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte.

Its central database is the hub of an elaborate network of terrorism-related databases throughout the federal bureaucracy. Terrorism-related names and other data are sent to the NCTC under standards set by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, signed by President Bush in September 2003, according to a senior NCTC official. The directive calls upon agencies to supply data only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

"We work on the basis that information reported to us has been collected in accordance with those guidelines," Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, the center's director, said in a statement.

Analysts at the NCTC review all incoming names and can reject them if they do not have an apparent link to international terrorists, officials said. "That is not common, but it does happen," an NCTC official said, citing as examples a domestic or foreign drug dealer or a member of a U.S.-based extremist group, when neither has any sign of international terrorist connections.

The NCTC then sends a subset of the repository list to the FBI's screening center, and each entry includes a reference "to how the individual is associated with international terrorism," according to a June 2005 report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. This reference is assigned one of 25 codes such as "Member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization," "Hijacker" or "Has Engaged in Terrorism," according to the report. The report also notes that the codes are split in two categories: "Individuals who are considered armed and dangerous and those who are not."

Fine's office criticized the TSC for including nearly 32,000 records of people in the "armed and dangerous" category but giving them the lowest handling code, which means that no report needs to be sent back to the FBI if they are encountered in the United States by law enforcement officers.

The TSC consolidates NCTC data on individuals associated with foreign terrorism with the FBI's purely domestic terrorism data to create a unified, unclassified terrorist watch list. The TSC, in turn, provides, for official use only, a version giving each person's name, country, date of birth, photos and other data to the Transportation Security Agency for its no-fly list, the State Department for its visa program, the Department of Homeland Security for border crossings, and the National Crime Information Center for distribution to police.

Shannon Moran, a spokeswoman for the FBI screening center, declined to answer detailed questions about the center's work, including how many names are on its list, how many U.S. citizens are included and whether the FBI database includes names linked to the NSA program. Fine's office reported last year that the FBI database contained more than 270,000 names, including a large number of people associated with domestic terrorist movements such as radical environmentalists and neo-Nazi white supremacists.

"If being placed on a list means in practice that you will be denied a visa, barred entry, put on the no-fly list, targeted for pretextual prosecutions, etc., then the sweep of the list and the apparent absence of any way to clear oneself certainly raises problems," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.

The growth of terrorist-related data networks within the U.S. intelligence community has greatly accelerated since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there were databases containing terrorist identities at the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and State Department. In addition there were 13 independent watch lists, but the lists or databases were not interoperable.

Currently, according to an NCTC official, there are 26 classified data networks carrying terrorism material. In a December 2005 interview on Federal News Radio, Redd said his agency "is really the only place in government and certainly in the intelligence community where all counterterrorism intelligence comes together." He also said that analyses of terrorism issues from all 15 intelligence agencies come into the NCTC, which then puts them on its Web site.

"What that means," Redd said, "is about 5,000 analysts around the counterterrorist intelligence community can pull up that Web site and see . . . what every other agency has as well, assuming they have the clearances."

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the size of the NCTC list and other terrorism-related databases underscores the severity of the "false positive" problem, in which innocent people -- including members of Congress -- have been stopped for questioning or halted from flying because their names are wrongly included or are similar to suspects' names.

"One of the seemingly unsolvable problems is what do you do when someone is wrongly put on this watch list," Rotenberg said. "If there are that many people on the list, a lot of them probably shouldn't be there. But how are they ever going to get off?"

Think about it. If you aren't mad as hell, you have not yet opened your eyes. Not only has this administration sold you out to the multi-national corporations with their mantra of, "They hate us! They want to kill us!", but they have given lip service to the cause of "democracy" for the Middle East, whether they want it or not, while they cannot accept true democracy when it rears its head, but must pounce upon and destroy it in its nest. At long last, after too many years of the iron-fisted control of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian people have exercised their inherent rights to self-determination and held a truly democratic election under international supervision. However, their choice is not sitting well with the powers-that-be in Washington and Jerusalem. They have determined that the Palestinian people do not really deserve democracy and their choices must be negated by withholding of funds necessary to rule that beleaguered land.

On the same day we learn of this, news comes out of Ohio that the Dread "Democratic Leadership Council" has again denied the people the right to vote for the candidate of their choice. Many of us are still smarting over the debacle of 2004 when "the people" found several of the political candidates in the field who would satisfy our purpose of supporting someone who would be concerned for our welfare and for whom enough of us could in good conscience assist in their task of booting Bush & Co, out of our once-revered White House. This was not to be, as the DLC and other power groups designated the nomination of John Kerry as "their" candidate, causing many disillusioned Americans to stay away from the polls in droves.

The story of the day which may be enough to cause the long-awaited uprising of the American voters just may be the betrayal of a returned veteran of the War of Choice, Paul Hackett. In 2004, he scared hell out of the Republicans with his campaign of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. His exposure of the lies of the Bush cabal led the people of his district in Ohio, a traditionally strong Republican district, to vote "across party lines" in numbers that almost unseated the entrenched Republican. This year he was attempting to gain the Democratic mandate and to unseat "good Republican" Senator Mike DeWine, and his chances looked good. But no! As usual the Democratic Party could not stand even the faint scent of victory! They went to Ohio and asked Paul Hackett to abandon his cause and step out of the race so that their hand-picked candidate could have a clear field against the senator!

Thus end the political efforts of a true American who would represent The People and tell the voters the naked truth, that THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES! We should be forewarned that this will be the fate of any honest person who tries to run for office within the two-party system in our nation, to be dumped by the very people who claim to represent us and to exemplify our needs and our desires. They are as power-hungry if not as dishonest as their counterparts in the other party and their watchword is to WIN, by whatever method they think may succeed and the people be damned.

What are we who really care about true democracy and have not given up the hope of reinstituting the system in our beloved nation to do? We must cast aside the worn-out mantle of political designation and vote together as Americans, voting in-party, out-of- party, and without regard to party, banding together in support of truth-seekers and truth-tellers, regardless of party, solidifying our support into the juggernaut that will be needed to remove the corruption at the heads of both parties before they totally destroy us. Stop the splintering of effort through numerous third parties with minor agenda and vote for those who seek a true mandate of the people and promise to truly represent the poor, the ill, the elderly. and the middle-class working people who carry the burden of supporting the rest. Failure to do so will bring down our own democracy and destroy any opportunity to construct another, following the Roman Empire into the dust of history.

If we do not have the intestinal fortitude to abandon our old habits and stand up for our rights as American citizens, the most important of which is the right to choose our own leaders, we may as well simply continue to blind ourselves with the idle chatter of the news headlines. "Did you hear that Dick Cheney shot a guy Saturday and nobody knew it until Monday?" "So what? That's what they do! They lie! They cheat! They cover up!" "So who ate the last of the turkey?"

Mary Pitt - - Email mpitt @ cox.net

1. BLUEPRINT FOR IMPERIALISM

A superpower does not have moral imperatives. It has strategic imperatives. Its purpose is not to sustain the lives of other people, but to sustain itself. George Monbiot, The Moral Myth, 25.11.03.

The 19th century’s definitive treatise was Das Kapital (1848) by Karl Marx. The 20th century had two major expositions of principles. Adolf Hitler published Eine Abrechnung (A Reckoning) in 1925, and Die Nazionalosozialistische Bewegung (the National-Socialistic Movement) in 1926. Together, these books became known as Mein Kampf (My Struggle). In 1964, The People’s Republic of China published The Little Red Book, an iconic collection of quotations from the speeches and publications of Mao Tse Tung.

The 20th century ended with a blueprint for imperialism - not a book, but a website called The Project for the New American Century.1

“We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.2” PNAC Statement of Principles, 3 June 1997.

PNAC’s inception, formed by people known as ‘neo-conservatives,’3 was primarily focused on an arms build-up “for the preservation of peace (sic)” (p. 7), following a “decade of defense neglect.” (p. 16).

REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES

Within the PNAC website is a statement (2000) called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (pdf)
This document is based upon Vice President Cheney’s Defense Policy Guidance, drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department’s Paul Wolfovitz and Lewis Libby.

Michale Klare writes: “This (1992) document calls for proactive U.S. military intervention to deter and prevent the rise of a contending peer (or equal) competitor, and asserts that the United States must use any and all means necessary to prevent that from happening.” At the time, people were “horrified,” and the document was withdrawn; it is still not available. It was later incorporated into the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America (pdf)

A forthcoming book,4 Deadly Doctrine No 1 Strike First, subtitled Objectives and Operations of America’s Neoconservative Mafia, investigates the years of effort by Paul Wolfovitz and the “neo-conservative machinations” which culminated in the publication of the 2002 National Security Strategy. The author states that it is still “the country's guiding strategic military document.” The first chapter of this book can be read here

The PNAC thrust, of which Rebuilding America’s Defenses is the key document, is based on this 2002 document. The signatories5 “participated in at least one project meeting or contributed a paper for discussion.” Both Libby (now indicted) and Wolfovitz, (now receiving ‘entourage’ complaints at the World Bank) were founding members of PNAC as well as signatories to Rebuilding America’s Defenses.

This RAD document has recently been receiving more attention. Just as I am putting up this blog, for example, Peter Phillips describes the Global Dominance Group and its connection with PNAC / Rebuilding America’s Defenses.

FROM ‘REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES’: OPERATION IMPERIALISM

The United States, says Rebuilding America’s Defenses, faces no global rival. America’s “grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.” (p. 8)

“If an American peace is to be maintained, and expanded, it must have a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence.” (p. 16)

“To preserve American military preeminence, aggressive experimentation with new technologies, especially information technologies, is essential. The “revolution” in the American military transformation is again stressed. (p. 62)

The Enduring Mission: to “maintain military preeminence that is consistent with the requirements of a strategy of American global leadership with global missile defenses” which protect and control land, sea, air, space and cyberspace. (p. 63)

“Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.” (p. 66)

“The price of American preeminence is that, just as it was actively obtained, it must be actively maintained.” (p. 85)

“If the United States is to maintain its preeminence – and the military revolution now underway is already an American-led revolution – the Pentagon must begin in earnest to transform U.S. military forces.” (p. 86)

“The maintenance of the American peace requires that American forces be preeminent when they are called upon to face very different adversaries in the future.” (p. 87)

“Global leadership is not something exercised at our leisure, when the mood strikes us or when our core national security interests are directly threatened; then it is already too late. Rather, it is a choice whether or not to maintain American military preeminence, to secure American geopolitical leadership, and to preserve the American peace.” (p. 88)


2. Operation Imperialism: The Enduring Mission

Brian Bogart, in an excellent essay, wrote: “Our dilemma stems from the postwar adoption of a military-based rather than a people-based economy. This policy, authored by Wall Street's Paul Nitze, is embodied in NSC-68, a document signed by President Truman in 1950.” This, says Bogart, is where America “took the wrong road.” Nitze’s ideas (until he recanted prior to dying) are joined at the hip with Cheney, Wolfovitz, (Darth Vader) Perle, Rumsfeld.

Bogart quotes Dwight Eisenhower, upon leaving office in January 1961:

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." –

Eisenhower’s farewell speech is shown in a film Why We Fight, “which examines the modern American military machine and the modern American militaristic mindset.” A ‘Real’ video of this film can be seen here

Gore Vidal recently wrote that he had been “credited” as being the first to “heretically refer” to the United States as an empire. Aged 80, he can now be treasured for his egotism and applauded for his historical awareness. In President Jonah, he discussed, with intelligence and humour, the present Bush administration’s “antipathy toward democracy.”

In case there are still some who balk at the United States being called an ‘empire,’ the OED’s definition of empire is: “From French: imperium; from Latin: imperator. Absolute sway, supreme control; an extensive territory, especially an aggravate of many states.”

The plan for America’s empire is on the web. Anyone can read it. The phrases preserve and extend, as far into the future as possible, expanded, visible expression of the extent of America’s status as a superpower, preeminence … these phrases define America’s intent.

There are other documents to look through, too. Just in case some think all Americans are naïve - unaware of the results their actions - read, for example, Ralph Peter's article, Constant Conflict in the 1997 US Army War College Quarterly.

“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive.”

The pathological problem with the neoconservatives is that they are myopic - unwilling to see, or hear criticism of, what conflicts with their ambition. They do not care how many people are killed. Morality does not exist in their corporate quest.

In March 2003, George Monbiot wrote: “Those who support the coming war with Iraq refuse to see that it has anything to do with US global domination.”

Ghali Hassan also expresses the thoughts of many in our world.

“The Bush Administration, its vassals and the mass media adopted the cliché of “democracy” to justify the invasion and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children. However, from the outset of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the U.S. objective was conspicuous; to destroy Iraq, install a puppet government and pillage the nation’s resources.”

The new 2006 Quarterly Defense Review (QDR)6 20 year plan (pdf) is presently causing much web discussion. The official issues, statements, debates, and commentaries are found here or one can read the key points here

This ‘QDR’ document opens with the statement, “The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war.”

Robert Dreyfus says the new QDR is the “Bush administration’s ultimate Plan for Empire,” which is “generational in scope.” This is not a “reassessment,” nor an “admission that the US has started something it cannot finish,” as suggested by Simon Tisdall in 7 February’s Guardian.

The PNAC document states very clearly, p. 8, “America’s “grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.” Mr. Rumsfeld has simply found a new jingo-phrase, in true corporate fashion. The "new goals" are discussed in Rebuilding America’s Defenses in various places. The word “transformation” is frequently used, for which the need for more money7 is strongly emphasized.

Picking up on the word “long,” a reporter asked if Iraq would be a “long war” at the press conference, Mr. Rumsfeld said, “No I don’t think Iraq will be a long war.” Brigadier General Kimmitt talked about “reposturing” (not in OED) forces, and said the US would “not maintain any long term bases in Iraq.”8

In January ’06, President Carter said: “What I believe is that there are people in Washington now, some of our top leaders, who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they're looking for ten, 20, 50 years in the future.”

We must insist on the US Government’s definition of “long” in each instance.

Sohbet Karbuz asks: United States Department of Defense … or Empire of Defense? He gives 5 essential US Department of Defense facts.
Fact 1: The US DoD is one of the world’s largest landlords
Fact 2: If the DoD were a country it would be 17th in the world’s GDP ranking.
Fact 3: The US DoD is the largest oil consumer in the US, and 31st largest in the world.
Fact 4: American GI is the most energy-consuming soldier ever seen on the field of war
Fact 5: The US military is the biggest purchaser of oil in the world.
Dr. Karbuz asked me to add Fact 6: The Department of Defense is the world’s largest employer, (p. 75) directly employing more than three million people. He gives an excellent list of footnote references. The article is a ‘MUST READ,’ here

Q. How ‘long’ will it take to dismantle the present Bush administration’s empire? Will there be a viable future?

APPENDIX: SIGNATORIES9 TO REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES

Roger Barnett, U.S. Naval War College
Alvin Bernstein, National Defense University
Stephen Cambone10, National Defense University, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence
Eliot Cohen, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Devon Gaffney, Cross Donors' Forum for International Affairs Thomas Donnelly, Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute
David Epstein, Office of Secretary of Defense, Net Assessment
David Fautua, Lt. Col., U.S. Army
Dan Goure, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Donald Kagan, Yale University
Fred Kagan, U. S. Military Academy at West Point
Robert Kagan,11 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Washington Post writer
Robert Killebrew, Col., USA (Ret.)
William Kristol, The Weekly Standard
Mark Lagon, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
James Lasswell, GAMA Corporation I.
Lewis Libby, Dechert Price & Rhoads, Assistant to the President
Robert Martinage, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment Phil Meilinger, U.S. Naval War College
Mackubin Owens, U.S. Naval War College,
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Steve Rosen, Harvard University, ex-Director of Foreign Policy Issues, awaiting trial
Gary Schmitt, Project for the New American Century, board of directors, U.S. Committee on NATO, author
Abram Shulsky, The RAND Corporation
Michael Vickers, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment Barry Watts, former director of Northrop Grumman Corporation, author of The Military Use of Space: A Diagnostic Assessment
Paul Wolfowitz, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, now World Bank President
Dov Zakheim, System Planning Corporation, left DoD 2004

Footnotes
[1] See William Rivers Pitt, The Project for the New American Century
[2] Italics throughout are mine unless otherwise noted
[3] For a list of 50 people described as ‘neoconservatives’, see here. Numbers vary from 320 (Bogart) – 400 (Phillips)
[4] Books: Imperial Designs by Gary Dorrien is a recommended book. Rise of the Vulcans, by James Mann, who is, I believe, a member of the PNAC clan.
[5] See Appendix
[6] Earlier QDR reports can be seen at: 1997, 2001 and 2005.
[7] To be discussed in a later PNAC blog.
[8] See upcoming Part II, US bases
[9] For further details on signatories, search name at http://www.sourcewatch.org/ and at http://www.wikipedia.org/
[10] See The Secret World of Stephen Cambone, Rumsfeld’s Sorcerer, by Jeffrey St. Clair, an excerpt from his new book, Grand Theft Pentagon
[11] Author of Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, from, which comes the famous quote: “Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less.” His wife is Victoria Nuland, the present US deputy chief of mission to NATO.


Why the United States “extends” and “expands” will be discussed in Part II: PNAC: REBUILDING AMERICAS DEFENSES. “Special Interests.”

The URL to PNAC: Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Part I is


Sarah Meyer: http://indexresearch.blogspot.com
can be reached at: sarahmeyer@freedom255.com